The Forgotten Touch
by Lachenna
Summary: An ordinary mission goes wrong when Allen and Lenalee end up switching bodies. Drama ensues as the couple try to get back to normal. Semi-AU. AllenxLenalee
1. Chapter 1

A/N: I've had the first three chapters of this story written for almost four months. But I've had writer's block on it ever since. I thought maybe posting the first chapter and seeing what people think would cure it. So please review!

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I woke up laying on damp grass. My vision was blurry and a strange ringing filled my ears. The air was full of smoke that smelled faintly of akuma poison.

Akuma... That's right. We had left the village to go exterminate the akuma hitting the travelers on the road. It wasn't a hard fight, between the two of us it ended fairly quickly. But in those last moments... There was an explosion, a bright light, and weird gas. And we were caught in it. We. Lenalee and I. Lenalee...

I forced myself to sit up. My eye wasn't reacting, it was safe to assume the akuma was dead. I looked around, but all I could see were streaks of color. I blinked and rubbed my eyes. Looking around again I made out the shape of a body not far away from me.

Shakily, I stood up and made my way closer. It wasn't far, but I was unsteady on my feet. I collapsed to my knees when I reached the spot. The body on the ground wasn't Lenalee. I panicked as I recognized it... the ripped uniform revealing the scars on the chest... that too skinny form... ...that unruly white hair...

It was me. _I_ was the one lying unconscious in the field. I looked down at myself and almost screamed.

One glimpse was all I needed, but I couldn't stop staring at my lap. I recognized this body just as easily as my own. The perfect skin between the short frilly skirt and knee high socks, the green hair that fell into my face. I was in Lenalee's body!

I took a few deep breaths to calm myself down. Then I turned my attention back to where my body was lying on the ground. If I was in Lenalee's body, then could she be in mine?

I grabbed ... _is that her shoulder or my shoulder?_ ... her shoulder with ... my much smaller hand and shook her awake. "Lenalee? Lenalee!"

"A... Allen?" It was odd hearing Lenalee's voice come out of my mouth. But when her eyes blinked open I was startled silent. I hadn't seen that shade of brown in years...

Those eyes blinked as she struggled to focus. "Allen? What's wrong...? Oh my god!"

I leaned back as she sat upright. She stared at me, her mouth hanging open. "Allen? Is that you?"

"Hey Lenalee."

"But that's- I mean, you're- what the hell's going on?"

"I don't know." I looked around the field now that I could see properly. It was as empty as it was before the akuma had shown up. Judging from the setting sun we'd been out for a couple hours.

"So we ... swapped bodies? How?" She stood up and looked around.

I shrugged. "We can figure that out later. We should get back to the village before it gets dark."

"Right." She held out a hand to help me up.

I reached up to take it and froze. She had offered me her left hand, which I instinctively reached for with my left hand. Except... Hers was skin colored and mine was black. But she was in my body, shouldn't she have my Innocence arm?

Apparently she had noticed the same thing. She sat back down and pulled off her/my boots and socks. The blood red rings of her Innocence were dangling around her ankles. "So our Innocence switched too..."

"Looks like it." I sighed and stood up. "I think my curse did as well."

"But your scar..."

"Is just a scar." I helped her to her feet. She chose to stay barefoot. "Your eyes are the color mine were before I got cursed."

"Ah. Then that's why yours stayed silver."

"Probably." I smiled at her. "Shall we head back?"

"Sure."

I took a few, very wobbly, steps, stopping when I heard light laughter behind me. "You can't walk in heels, can you?"

I blinked and looked down at my feet. They weren't very high, but they were definitely heels. Lenalee came up beside me and handed me my boots. "They'll be big, but it should be easier on you than those."

"Thanks." I sat down to swap her heels for my boots, but they weren't just big, they were too big. They wouldn't be any less awkward than the heels.

"Guess you're going barefoot too. Just take off my stockings first so you don't ruin them. I like that pair." I did what she asked, now was not the time to upset her over something trivial.

We walked side by side back to the village, keeping each other calm. Being in a different gendered body was hard on both of us, and I know that without her I would have been a lot more freaked out about suddenly becoming a girl. As we walked, we decided that given our current situation the best thing to do was get in touch with Komui. The man was slightly crazy, but he should be able to figure out what was going on.

When we reached the inn, we headed straight for the phone, so Lenalee could call her brother. Our mission was supposed to last another three days, but given the circumstances we needed to cut it short.

"Oh my darling, precious Lenalee! How wonderful to hear from you!"

"Umm, Komui?" She spoke hesitantly, I didn't blame her for being scared of how he'd react to this, my only comfort was that he couldn't do anything to me until I was no longer in her body. "Something happened. We need to come home early."

"Lenalee? What happened?! Did that octopus Allen try something?!"

"Komui-san, I can hear you, you know." I cleared my throat and spoke at the same time as Lenalee.

"Nii-san! Don't say things like that about Allen!"

"I was only joking!" He whined. "I know Allen would never lay a hand on you. Now tell me what happened." He switched back to serious mode almost instantaneously.

Lenalee sighed. "I can't explain over the phone. It's too complicated. Can you give Allen permission to open a gate so we can come home?"

"Lenalee, you know I can only do that in an emergency. Is one of you hurt?"

"No, but-"

"I'm fairly certain that you'll consider this an emergency, Komui-san." I gave Lenalee an apologetic smile for cutting her off. "I can't tell you why though. It's something you need to see to understand."

We listened to him shuffle papers around. "Fine. You have permission."

"Thanks Nii-san." She hung up without waiting for a reply.

We went upstairs to grab our stuff. Komui knew that we occasionally had to share a room, but he didn't know that we also shared a bed. I had been looking forward to doing that tonight, but all thinking of sex did was remind me that I currently didn't have a dick. And that was depressing.

Hit with a sudden need to pee, I ducked into the bathroom. What had seemed like too much information that morning (she burst in while I was in the shower), was now reassuring. I could at least use the bathroom without needing Lenalee's help.

.x.x.

I watched Allen as he ran into the bathroom. I was worried about him. I grew up around guys, I was confident that I could handle being one for a few days until we got this sorted out. But Allen didn't know the first thing about being a girl. This ordeal would be torture for him.

While Allen was busy, I opened his suitcase and looked for a change of clothes. How he managed to shred his exorcist jacket was a mystery, it wasn't that difficult of a fight. I found what I was looking for, along with a pair of the shoes he wore for training. They weren't ideal, but they at least wouldn't crush my anklets into my skin like his boots did.

After I changed, I pulled a pair of flats from my suitcase for Allen. After watching him attempt to walk in my heels, I knew he desperately needed them. I packed up both our suitcases and sat on the bed to wait for him.

Allen was taking a long time. But my anxiety mellowed to mild concern when I heard him throw up. The cause of that was easy to identify and didn't worry me, if anything it was relieving. He looked pretty shaken when he came out of the bathroom. "Are you alright?"

He nodded as he took the stockings and flats from me, but he struggled putting them on. He wasn't as ok as he wanted me to believe. "Let's go home."

He opened the ark gate while I grabbed the bags. I followed him after casting one last look around the room. It was a cute little place, I had been looking forward to spending our anniversary there.

.x.x.

Like always, the first thing Komui did when we entered his office was wrap his sister in a tight hug. "Lenaleeee!"

Only it wasn't her he grabbed, it was her body. Which I was currently in. "Umm, Komui-san, can you let go of me?"

"Lenalee?" He backed up a couple steps and looked me over. "Why does your voice sound like Allen's?"

She spoke from behind me. "Because that _is_ Allen. I'm over here."

Komui looked back and forth between us. I smiled gently at him. "We kind of... switched bodies."

"What?! How?!"

"We don't know." Lenalee put a hand on his shoulder to comfort him. He flinched away, it was written all over his face that he was weirded out by this. "We were fighting an akuma, there was an explosion, and when we woke up we were like this."

The explanation seemed to snap Komui back to himself. "And you had switched bodies? Is that all there is to it?"

"Not exactly." I pulled up my sleeve and held out my arm. "Our Innocence seems to have switched with us."

He took my hand and looked it over. I just stood there awkwardly while he moved my fingers and wrist. Lenalee was unusually quiet, something more than what had happened was bothering her. Komui let go of my hand and it fell back to my side. "Interesting. It seems-"

I didn't hear the rest of the sentence. Hit by a sudden wave of nausea, I bolted from the room for the nearest bathroom. I had figured the incident earlier had been a reaction to the switch. It was weird that it was happening a second time.

There were footsteps behind me as I threw up in the toilet. Then a hand was rubbing comforting circles on my back. "I'm sorry Allen. I should have warned you."

Lenalee helped me to my feet. "Warned me about what?"

I rinsed my mouth while I waited for an answer. She remained silent for what felt like forever. When I turned to look at her I noticed Komui had followed us as well.

Lenalee gave me a sad smile. "The morning sickness... I'm two months pregnant."


	2. Chapter 2

A/N: Thanks for all the kind reviews. :) It worked, I've written chapter 4 and started chapter 5. If there's something you'd like to see happen let me know, maybe I'll work it into the story. ;)

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Komui looked back and forth between Allen and Lenalee, his precious sister and the man who knocked her up. He knew they'd been together for some time now, and he was mostly ok with that, but it was news to him that they had slept together. The scene before him was really strange, that was all that kept him from freaking out. Those kids needed him to stay calm, freaking out would only hurt his sister.

Allen, in Lenalee's body, was reacting not only to the news that his girlfriend was pregnant, but to the realization that since he was the one in her body, _he_ was the one who was pregnant. "Two months?"

Lenalee, in Allen's body, nodded. "I was going to tell you on Friday, on our anniversary."

Allen said nothing. He couldn't come up with any words. If the day's events hadn't happened, Friday would have been the best day of his life. But they did, and for as long as he was stuck in Lenalee's body the pregnancy would be a bad thing.

Komui took charge of the situation. "Ok, let's get you two down to my lab. The sooner we figure out what happened, the sooner we can get you back to normal."

The teenagers followed the supervisor down the hall and into the room where he kept the official examination equipment, not one of the ones where he kept the weird stuff. At his gesturing they sat down. For this kind of exam Komui would have normally separated the two, but under the circumstances, splitting them up would be more awkward than letting them stay together. Lenalee hadn't let go of Allen's hand since she'd dropped that bomb on him.

"Before we get started, there's something we need to talk about." Komui looked from one teen to the other. These were not people he ever expected to have to give this talk to; Allen had been trained by General Cross after all, and Lenalee... well, the supervisor thought he had taught his sister better than that. "Do you two realize just how irresponsible you've been?"

The teens looked at each other. Lenalee had never seen her brother upset with her before and was confused as to what she did wrong. Allen knew where the man was going, and he didn't like it. "Yes Komui-san, we're both aware that having a baby in the middle of a war is stupid and reckless. But it's happening, and now is not the time for a lecture. Get us back to our own bodies and then you can yell all you want."

Komui narrowed his eyes at Allen, the octopus currently inhabiting his sister's body. He didn't like it, but the boy was right. Until the pair switched back anything he said on the subject would be a waste of breath.

The supervisor ran his tests on the teens, meticulously recording every detail. Both Allen and Lenalee stayed silent, sharing worried glances. The only sound was the occasional throat clearing from Lenalee whenever her brother tried to pull something mean on Allen.

When the tests were done, Komui sent the couple to the cafeteria for dinner while he tried to make sense of the data he'd gathered.

.x.x.

I held Allen's hand as we walked to the cafeteria. He hadn't said a word about my pregnancy. I wanted him to be as excited as I was, but at least he hadn't gotten upset or angry. Silence was preferable to that. And until we got the results from Komui, worrying was pointless.

Allen stopped just short of the doors. "How do you want to play this?"

"What do you mean?"

"Do we tell everyone what happened or do we pretend to be each other?" He smiled innocently, but I caught onto what he was thinking.

"You want to mess with Lavi and Kanda." The smile became a smirk that I matched. It wasn't often that the opportunity to prank the resident prankster came around. "Did you have something in mind?"

He shrugged. "It's nothing spectacular, but what if we act like nothing happened? I'll act like myself and you'll act like yourself, and when they comment on the switch we'll act like they're seeing things."

I smiled. "I like it. It's simple, but it should really screw with their heads."

Allen started to go inside, but I stopped him. "There's one more thing. Jerry knows I'm pregnant... And that it's yours."

The silence that followed was painful. When Allen finally spoke his voice was strained. "Exactly how long have you known?"

"Two weeks." I smiled gently at him, but he wasn't looking at me. "I only told Jerry because I wanted his opinion on how to break the news to you. This mission was my first chance to tell you."

I pulled him into a hug, it felt really weird to hug my own body. "I didn't want it to happen like this."

He remained quiet so I nudged him toward the doors. "Let's get you some food. It'll make you feel better."

I know we had Lavi's attention as we ordered our food, and we probably had Kanda's too, though he would refuse to admit it. Allen, the perfect gentleman, always let me go first, and that night was no exception. Which meant that from their perspective he broke his tradition and made me wait. I could see the confusion in Lavi's eye as we approached the table. This was going to be fun.

.x.x.

I couldn't help watching Allen and Lenalee when they entered the dining hall together. The rumor that something had happened on their mission had spread like wildfire; everyone was gossiping about what could have made exorcists of their caliber run from a fight. Personally, I figured they'd just finished ahead of schedule.

I was looking for anything that would give me a hint as to what happened, but the only physical difference I noticed was that Allen wasn't wearing his boots. Their _behavior_ on the other hand... That was very odd.

Allen didn't let Lenalee order first. The only explanation I could come up with for that was that he had finally asked her out and gotten rejected. Though I was certain that she liked him too, so that theory wasn't the greatest. And they had no problems with sitting next to each other at the table, so maybe it was just that he was too hungry to wait.

I smiled at them as they sat down. "Hey Lena Lady, Bean Sprout. How was the mission?"

"I've told you before, my name's Allen. Stop calling me that." It was the expected response- from Allen. So why was Lenalee the one saying it?

"Come on Allen, it's been years since that started, he's not going to drop it. You should just give up already." And that was the usual response from Lenalee, but it came from Allen. And the way he laughed, that wasn't how Allen usually laughed.

Something was wrong. I looked from one to the other. "That was weird. ...What happened on your mission?"

Lenalee shrugged. "Nothing much. We fought a bunch of akuma and then came home."

"Then why'd you have to come home early?"

Jerry's helpers brought out their dishes then, so my question went unanswered. Added to the strange was the way they dug into the pile of food. Allen pulled a plate close to him and began to eat properly, while Lenalee grabbed the closest thing and shoved it into her mouth. And she proceeded to inhale everything in sight. It was almost as if they were... But that was too weird.

Even Kanda noticed something was going on. He'd been pretending to ignore us, but the scene before us actually made him put down his chopsticks. He narrowed his eyes at Allen who was still eating like a normal person. Because, like me, he thought that that was weirder than Lenalee being extra hungry. "Oi Moyashi!"

"What Bakanda?" The retort was muffled by the amount of food in Lenalee's mouth.

It was followed by Allen elbowing her in the ribs. "Don't talk with your mouth full."

She stuck her tongue out at him. Then she turned to Kanda. "What do you want Bakanda?"

The words were followed by complete silence. It finally clicked for me. "Allen? Is that you?"

Lenalee laughed. "Of course it is. Who else would I be?"

I looked at Allen. "Then you must be Lenalee."

He just rolled his eyes at me, exactly like Lenalee did whenever one of us said something stupid.

Then they had what? Swapped genders? No, it was more than that if she had his scar. "What the _hell_ happened on your mission?!"

They shared a look. Then Allen- no, if I was right then that was really Lenalee, looked at me. "What makes you think something happened, Lavi?"

I couldn't help gaping at them. "Have you looked in a mirror lately?"

Allen stopped shoving food into his mouth long enough to narrow his eyes at me. Except it looked like Lenalee was the one doing it. It was surreal. "Yeah, what of it?"

Did they not know that they had changed? "But- you- and-"

My babbling was cut off by Kanda growling. Loudly. "That's enough! Whatever game you two are playing needs to stop! Now!"

I jumped, but Kanda made sense. Allen and Lenalee were messing with us. I was making things too complicated by assuming they had actually somehow switched bodies.

I expected them to jump like I did. Instead Lenalee smirked and Allen giggled. He clasped her on the shoulder and spoke through the giggles. "You were right, that was fun."

Kanda growled again. Lenalee's smirk got bigger. "Calm down Bakanda."

Kanda had stood up and drawn Mugen. He pointed the sword back and forth between the two of them before settling on Lenalee. "Explain yourself woman. Why are you acting like the Moyashi?"

She even pushed Kanda's sword away with her left wrist in exactly the same way Allen would have. "Like I've already said several thousand times, my name is Allen, Bakanda. And who else am I supposed to act like? I may be stuck in Lenalee's body, but I'm still me."

I froze. _So I was right the first time? They really had switched bodies?_ Kanda sheathed his sword and sat back down, glaring the entire time. Allen sighed and Lenalee resumed stuffing her face. Or rather, Lenalee sighed and Allen resumed stuffing his face? "We don't really know what happened. There was an explosion and we woke up like this."

Lenalee- no, Allen managed to roll up his left sleeve without stopping his eating. The exposed skin of Lenalee's arm was pitch black. "Whatever happened switched our Innocence too."

I could hear it now, their voices had changed. Someone who knew them really well probably could have heard the difference right away, but it took me some time. To someone like Komui, with his insane sister-complex, it probably sounded like Allen's body now had Lenalee's voice and vice versa, but to me it was more like their voices had shifted.

.x.x.

After Allen and I finished explaining what happened, Lavi suddenly shot up and looked around wildly. Kanda grabbed his arm and yanked him down forcibly. "What the fuck are you spazzing out about, Baka Usagi?"

The redhead glanced over his shoulder in a paranoid way. "Just wondering where the giant robot is."

"Huh?"

He laughed at me. "Why hasn't your crazy, psycho older brother flipped out over this? Shouldn't he be all worked up and trying to kill Allen?"

"He can't touch me so long as I'm in his sister's body." Allen shrugged without looking up from his plates. "The giant robot will probably appear once we're back to normal though. Assuming he doesn't just kill me outright."

I couldn't help smiling at him. "It won't be that bad, Allen."

He responded by narrowing his eyes at me and giving me a pointed look. It was slightly off putting seeing that expression on my own face, but I understood what he wasn't saying. And he was right. Once we were back to normal Komui was going to go ballistic on him for knocking me up.

Allen suddenly stood up from the table and turned to me. He was done eating. "Shall we go see if your brother has made any progress?"


	3. Chapter 3

I woke up on Lenalee's bed. She was sitting down at the end with her back against the wall and my feet in her lap. There was a half second of disorientation when I saw myself watching me, but the memory of what happened came back quickly. I had passed out in Komui's lab, after he had told us that the only answer he had for us was that the baby was alive and healthy.

I could tell from the way Lenalee sighed that she knew I was awake. I could also feel the anxious aura flowing off her, so instead of greeting her I merely looked away. It was my usual way of telling her to say what was on her mind, but it also allowed me to stop looking at my own body, because that was still freaking me out.

"Komui's still running his tests, but he believes that this thing will wear off on its own in about a week."

I couldn't help sighing. I was going to be stuck in this pregnant body for a week. That was both short enough that I could handle it, and way, way too long.

Lenalee echoed my sigh. "You know, I almost wish it would last longer. There's a part of me that wants to see how you would handle carrying a child to term and giving birth to it."

She laughed lightly. I stiffened. That was my worst fear in all of this, that I would still be stuck in her body when it came time for the baby to be born.

She sighed again. "But what I really want is for us to switch back so that _I_ can be pregnant again. I never thought that I would get the chance to experience that. I thought that this never ending war had killed my chances of being normal. I was so thrilled to learn I was pregnant. Because even with how hard it was going to be to raise a child in all of this, it was _your_ child.

"I wanted you to be happy about it too." Her breath hitched like she was trying not to cry. "I never thought... It never occurred to me that you wouldn't want it. And that scares me. More than anything ever could. Because if we disagree on something as fundamental as this, what kind of a future do we have together?"

The question was rhetorical, but I still wanted to answer it, wanted to tell her that she was wrong. But she didn't give me the time to respond.

"I love you so much, Allen. I want us to be together. Ideally _with_ our child. But maybe I need to give that up."

I froze with that last sentence. _Is she talking about...?_

She started to cry. "I don't want to, but I have to choose you over our baby. I'll ask Komui about getting rid of it. I-"

 _She is. She's talking about having an abortion._ I didn't have to force myself to look at her anymore. "Lena!"

I startled both her and myself with how quickly I sat up. "You can't! You can't possibly go through with that!"

"But if you don't want it then how can I keep it?" She started sobbing.

I pulled her into my arms, doing my best not to cringe at how weird it was to hug while we were switched. "Lena. I want the baby."

"Allen, don't. Don't lie to me. I know how upset you are over this. You haven't even been able to look at me since I told you."

 _Oh._ "Lena. I'm not upset that you got pregnant. I'm upset that we're in the wrong bodies." She was still crying, but the sobs had faded. "Because as long as I'm stuck in your body, _I'm_ the one who's pregnant."

"Do you really mean that?"

I smiled at her when she looked at me. "I do. If we were in our normal bodies, you telling me that you were pregnant with my child would have been the best news you could ever give me."

She smiled and wiped the tears out of her eyes. "Then you want me to keep the baby?"

I laughed briefly. "Lena, I would want you to keep the baby even if I didn't want it. I wouldn't be able to live with myself if I let you kill an innocent child."

Her smile brightened and the weirdness got to be too much, I had to look away again. I could feel that smile turn into a frown. "Allen..."

"I'm sorry Lena, it's just too bizarre. It's hard looking at you when you're in my body." I sighed and pulled her down onto the bed. "I just need some time to get used to it. Let's get some sleep, we'll both feel better in the morning."

.x.x.

Allen tried to turn getting dressed into a fiasco. He absolutely refused to wear any of my skirts. I understood why he was being a pain, waking up tired and hungry from being pregnant wasn't exactly pleasant, but he was taking all the joy out of the first good night's sleep I'd gotten in a month. "Allen, stop being a crybaby and put on the skirt. You wore one all last night, and I've heard you tell Lavi stories about cross-dressing, so I know you really don't care. Just do it so we can go to breakfast."

When he finally complied, I shoved him toward food while I went to talk to Komui. My brother had nothing new to tell me though, so I went to join Allen. I arrived at the dining hall to find him sitting with Lavi.

The redhead was leaning across the table to get closer to Allen. Whatever he was saying was something he didn't want people to hear. Allen didn't seem all that interested, as he was much more focused on the food in front of him. I approached carefully so that neither saw me, I wanted to know what the redhead was trying to keep secret.

Lavi was whining. "Tell me you've at least taken the opportunity to check out the body of the hottest girl in the Order."

Allen just blinked at him. "What are you talking about?"

Lavi sighed and threw his hands up dramatically. "I should have known better! You're such a stick in the mud when it comes to women!" He leaned in closer and whispered in Allen's ear. "You do know that any _normal_ guy would be jumping at the chance to feel up that body that you're in."

When Allen didn't respond, Lavi groaned. "Come on! You can't possibly be that dull! You must have wanted to touch her! Or at least looked at her naked body while you were changing!"

I couldn't resist smacking Lavi in the back of the head. "There's no need for him to do anything of the sort. That's all stuff he can see whenever he wants. You need to get your mind out of the gutter."

Lavi went white as he looked up at me. "L-Lenalee. I- I..." He suddenly whipped his head back to Allen. "Wait! You're _sleeping_ together?! Since when?!"

Allen narrowed his eyes at me and kept eating. I shrugged as I sat beside him. We were having a baby, it was time for that secret to come out.

Lavi looked like his head might explode. Then he sighed overdramatically and banged his forehead against the table. "No wonder I could never get you interested in going out to bars with me!"

He suddenly sat upright and glared at us. "You're messing with me again, aren't you? If you were really together Komui would have gone completely ballistic."

Allen and I both winced at the memory of the time Komui caught us making out. It was a very awkward and stressful conversation. And I know it was even worse for Allen. I forced a smile at Lavi. "It was pretty bad, but I do have at least some control over my brother."

Lavi laughed at me. "I don't buy it. There's no way you got Komui to agree to that."

Allen finally stopped eating. He shoved his left hand in Lavi's face, so he could see the gold band on the ring finger. It was my turn to laugh at Lavi. "He proposed three months ago. Nii-san has no choice but to behave."

Lavi grabbed the hand and turned it over and over again. I couldn't tell if he was more freaked out by the ring or by the black skin of Allen's Innocence. "How could you not tell me?!"

Allen tried to pull his hand away, but Lavi wouldn't let go. I smacked the back of the redhead's hand and he dropped it. "We had a bet going. We wanted to see how long it would take you to notice."

Lavi narrowed his eye at us. "So who won?"

"We both lost." Allen laughed in annoyance. "We were thinking it would take you two weeks at most. Not three whole months."

There were a few minutes of silence before Lavi responded. "So when's the wedding?"

I looked at Allen and sighed. "This thing put a major dent in our plans. But sometime this winter."

Allen looked severely confused, so I leaned over and whispered in his ear. "Before the baby's born."

A clatter had my attention turning back to Lavi. He had dropped his fork. The expression on his face... _Oh shit! He heard me!_ I clapped my hands across his mouth. "Ssh!"

I dropped my hands. Lavi looked back and forth between me and Allen, his mouth opening and closing but no words came out. I sighed and looked at Allen, but he wasn't paying attention. He had zoned out like he did whenever the baby got mentioned. I would have to do this alone. I steeled myself and turned back to Lavi. "Yes. We're having a baby. Can you keep your mouth shut about it? It's still a secret."

Lavi nodded several times. Then he smirked. "Well that explains how you got Komui to agree to your engagement. He certainly wouldn't let his precious sister have an illegitimate child."

He suddenly yelped, and reached down to grab the shin Allen had kicked. "Baka."

Allen was glaring at the redhead. "First of all, the pregnancy happened _after_ the engagement. And second, telling Komui that I wanted to marry his sister _was_ how I got him to agree to let us be together."

"Wait, wait, wait." That last bit was news to me. "You actually asked Nii-san for permission to marry me?"

"I did." He nodded slowly. "I bought the ring about a week before Komui caught us together. When he tried to 'convince' me to break up with you, I showed him the ring and told him that I was going to propose to you. He changed his tune after that."

I desperately wished Allen was in his own body right then. That slight blush and innocent expression of his seemed really wrong on my face. Especially when he sighed. "He's going to kill me when this is over though. He'll never forgive me for getting you pregnant."

The silence that followed was awkward. I didn't know what to say to cheer Allen up. Lavi finally broke it with a change of subject. "So how far along are you?"

"Two months."

He huffed and flailed his arms dramatically. "And you've waited this long to tell me? Some friends you are."

Lavi winced as he was kicked in the shin again. Allen frowned at him. "I only found out last night. Stop whining."

Everything fell silent again before Lavi suddenly burst out laughing. He tried to speak, but couldn't get any words out because he was laughing so hard. Allen and I shrugged at each other and turned our attention to our food. Lavi would explain once he was done with his laughing fit.

After about five minutes, Kanda came over and smacked Lavi upside the head. "Stop laughing like a manic, Baka Usagi. It's annoying."

I gestured for Kanda to join us. He looked between me and Allen for a moment, then turned and stalked away. Apparently the whole body switching thing was too weird for him.

Lavi was still laughing, but it was much calmer now. He grinned broadly at Allen, and that smile made us both cringe away. "If she's pregnant, and you're in her body, that means that you're the one who's pregnant right now, doesn't it?"

 _Uh oh._ I slid away from Allen, not wanting to be caught in the crossfire if he exploded. But he merely growled calmly at the giggling redhead. "What of it?"

"Nothing, nothing! It's just funny, that's all!"


	4. Chapter 4

A/N: This chapter is a FLASHBACK. This means that Allen and Lenalee are in their OWN bodies for this.

.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.

~A Few Months Earlier~

I stood anxiously in Komui's office. Ever since I started dating Lenalee I was paranoid of what would happen if he found out about us, and that feeling only got worse after I took her virginity. All I wanted in that moment was to finish my mission report as quickly as possible.

I finished right as Lenalee came into the room with coffee for her brother. We shared a secret smile, and I could tell from her body language that she was relieved to see me; after my near death experience two years earlier, the worry that the other wouldn't return from a mission was strong.

Excusing myself, I left Lenalee alone with her brother. I didn't expect her to follow me. She grabbed my hand and pulled me to a stop. "Welcome back, Allen. I missed you."

I smiled at her. "I missed you too."

And then she was pushing me into the wall, her body pressing firmly into mine as she brushed a hand into my hair and kissed me. But before I could react to the kiss, we were interrupted by a choked scream.

Komui had come out of his office.

There was a tense moment as we all just stared at each other. Then all hell broke loose. Komui got that glint in his eyes and he summoned one of his giant robots.

I tried to run, but Lenalee held me in place. She positioned herself between me and her brother. "Nii-san! Calm down! It was just a kiss! And Allen's my boyfriend! He didn't do anything wrong!"

Her words only served to anger him further. He started shouting nonsense about me being an octopus, and he sicced the robot on me. I activated my Innocence to defend myself, but Lenalee had the robot smashed before I could do anything with it. "What do you think you're doing, Nii-san?!"

She approached him with her boots still activated, and he threw himself at her feet and sobbed crocodile tears. He began making excuses for his behavior, and though I was behind her, I could see Lenalee going from angry to upset.

It wasn't all that surprising when she suddenly slapped him across the face, it was what Lenalee did after all, but never before had she done that to her brother. I could only stand there and watch, but when Lenalee started sobbing my reaction was automatic. I caught her wrist as she began to run away and pulled her into my chest. Then I wrapped my arms around her and held her tight. It hurt to see her cry like that. "Hey, it's ok, calm down, Lena."

I continued to whisper meaningless comforting words in her ear, and I knew it was working when the sobs calmed and she returned my embrace. We'd discussed it before, and she had always been adamant that her brother would be understanding when we told him about our relationship. It hurt her deeply that he had reacted like that.

That's when my black side came out. I knew it would only make things worse, but I was pissed that Komui had made Lenalee cry. But when I fixed my glare on Komui it was clear from the expression on his face that he realized he had hurt his sister. So I let him apologize.

Lenalee returned to herself after the apology, but she was definitely edgy when Komui started asking questions about our relationship. We explained everything to him. Well, almost everything. We left out the part where we were sleeping together. But I don't think Komui could have taken that news; he probably would have had a heart attack.

When it was done Lenalee was ultimately proven right, Komui caved. He gave us permission to be together. Her tear-stained face was probably the main reason for that though.

It was a huge relief. But that all turned back into fear when Komui requested a moment alone with me. Lenalee and I shared a look. Neither of us wanted to leave me alone with him, but we knew we had no choice. Before she left, Lenalee made Komui promise that he wasn't going to do anything to me.

As soon as she was gone, Komui was in my face. "What's it going to take to make you break up with her?"

I backed away and blinked at the words, not getting what he was suggesting. "Huh?"

"Do I have to bribe you? Threaten you? What do I have to do to scare you off?"

"Komui-san. You can't force me into breaking up with your sister." It was an understatement to say that I was horrified by his words.

"Then what if I ask nicely?" His voice was full of desperation. "Will you end your relationship then?"

I sighed in exasperation. "Let me try this a different way. I _can't_ break up with Lenalee."

Reaching into my jacket, I pulled out the little box that had been burning a hole in my pocket for the past week. I forced myself to remain calm as I handed it to Komui and waited for him to open it. "I already bought the ring."

He gaped at me and I smiled gently at him. "I can't break up with her because I'm going to ask her to marry me."

When Komui finally found his voice it was very quiet. "You're going to take her away from me?"

I snorted at the childish whine. "Where would I take her? The Order is the only home I've ever known. And it's her home too. I could never ask her to leave it for me."

His attitude changed in a heartbeat. I found myself wrapped in a tight hug as Komui ruffled my hair and started spouting insane happiness garbage. When I finally extricated myself from his hold, I tried to get the ring back, but he wouldn't give it to me. "Are you sure it's good enough? Girls put a lot of emphasis on the value and quality of these things you know."

I snorted at the unsolicited advice. "I know."

He ignored me. "This doesn't seem like something Lenalee would like either. Gold isn't really her color."

I shrugged as I finally got the ring back. "I know, it surprised me too. But it's what she picked out."

Komui immediately got whiney again. "She knows you bought the ring? Allen, you're not supposed to tell the girl that you're going to propose."

"I know that, Komui-san." I couldn't resist rolling my eyes in my annoyance. "She may have picked it out, but she doesn't know I bought it."

.x.x.

It seemed like Allen and Komui spent hours talking. I felt like I was going to have a heart attack. Even if he said he approved of our relationship, letting my overprotective older brother talk to my skittish boyfriend alone was a bad idea.

But when Allen finally came and found me he looked and acted exactly like normal. I was skeptical at first, but his repeated assurances that nothing happened calmed me down. And by the time we were done with dinner I had forgotten all about my concerns.

We'd been apart for a week, so I wasn't surprised when Allen gave me that very specific look of his as soon as his plates were empty. We excused ourselves from the table and made our way up to my room. We had no reason to be secretive anymore, but old habits die hard.

My exorcist jacket hit the floor as soon as the door was closed and locked. Allen's silver eyes widened at the sight of the _very_ revealing top I had put on in anticipation of his return. From the look on his face you would have never guessed that this wasn't his first time seeing my breasts. But that was one of the things I loved about Allen: he made me feel like I was the most beautiful woman on the planet.

Allen stared at me for a moment longer, but then he closed his eyes and shook his head. "Lena, before we get into this, we need to talk."

I was suddenly on edge as my worries from earlier came crashing back. "Talk? What about?"

He smiled at me, and I was definitely not expecting him to take my hand and get down on one knee. I have no clue what words he said as he proposed to me. I'm sure it was sweet and genuine, but I was so shocked that he was actually proposing that I couldn't process the words. But the image of him, kneeling like that with my hand in both of his, that would be burned in my memory forever.

And then he pulled a box out of his pocket, and offered me a ring. "Will you marry me, Lenalee?"

I joined him on the ground and threw my arms around him. "Of course!"

He kissed me chastely, and then he moved us around so that he could put the ring on my finger. And that's when I recognized it. The plain gold band decorated with a silver moon and stars pattern. The one that reminded me of the boy who had just proposed. I had fallen in love with it the second I laid eyes on it, in much the same way as I had with Allen. It had hurt so bad that I didn't have the money to buy it. "Where did you get this?"

He smiled sheepishly at me. "I saw the way you looked at it in the shop, so I went back and bought it later that night."

I blinked at him. "But how did you manage to pay for it?" A thought occurred to me and I narrowed my eyes at him. "You better not have bought my ring with money you earned gambling."

Allen laughed as he kissed me. "Of course not. I knew you wouldn't want that, so I saved money from the food stipend the Order gives me."

 _He deprived himself of food for me?_ That was somehow both touching and disturbing. Before I could react, Allen kissed me again. "Thank you for falling for something I could afford. I don't think I could have restrained myself much longer."

I laughed as he pulled me to my feet. Then he kissed me one more time. "Now that that's settled, may I say, you look absolutely stunning in that top."

In no time at all we were laying naked on my bed. We made love several times that night and fell asleep in each other's arms.


	5. Chapter 5

A/N: To the reviewer who asked: Neah's gone. It's not relevant to the story, so I'm not going to waste time figuring out how or where he went. All you need to know is that he's not inside Allen anymore.

A/N #2: We're back to the present now, the flashback's over. We're picking up immediately after their breakfast with Lavi.

.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.

After breakfast, Allen and I went down to see Hevlaska. I was terrified of what she was going to say. And it had nothing to do with the reason why we were going there. Komui wanted her to examine our Innocence for clues as to why we had switched bodies. But I had been putting off seeing her for two weeks now...

After I learned I was pregnant, the Head Nurse had ordered me to go see Hevlaska. I was supposed to find out if my crystallized Innocence was affecting my unborn child. But I couldn't make myself go. Because I knew deep down that Hevlaska would tell me that my baby was an accommodator, and I didn't want to hear that. I didn't want my baby to be destined to become an exorcist.

I don't know if Allen was scared of the same thing I was, or if he had different reasons, but he willingly held my hand the entire way, and that was one of the many things he didn't like about being swapped. But then I recalled that Hevlaska's exam was one of those random little things that Allen was actually afraid of; he said it felt invasive and creepy.

When we reached her chamber, Hevlaska welcomed us cheerfully. She seemed surprised to see us. "Ah, Allen and Lenalee, Welcome. Did you find an Innocence fragment on your last mission?"

Allen and I blinked at each other. He found his voice first. "No, we didn't. Why do you ask?"

If she noticed our swapped bodies she didn't comment on it. "Odd. I sense three pieces of Innocence on the two of you. Your own, and a third, new, fragment."

I felt like running from the room screaming. "Fuck!"

"Lenalee!" Allen squeezed my hand tightly. "What's with the language? You never swear."

"Allen..." I stared critically at him for a moment. "In case you've forgotten, there _is_ a third person with the two us."

His eyes widened ever so slightly. "Oh."

"Would you two please explain? I'm kind of in the dark here."

I sighed and smiled up at Hevlaska. "Well, first of all, we came down to see you because on our last mission, Allen and I ended up switching bodies. We were hoping you could tell us something about how it happened or how long we're going to be stuck this way. As for the other thing..."

I took a deep calming breath before I continued. "We're having a baby. And I think that might be where the third fragment you're sensing is."

When she finished gushing over the news, Hevlaska called us closer for an examination. That went how it usually did, but the waiting afterward was nerve wracking. On top of all that, she had us send for Komui, and waiting for him to show up was painful.

"Unfortunately, I can't tell you anything productive about your body switching problem. I learned nothing about how or why this is happening from my examination. There's a little bit of good news in that your synchronization rates haven't changed. But that's all."

I nodded slowly. "And what about the other thing?"

Hevlaska sighed. "You were right about the third fragment, Lenalee. Your child is the host of a parasitic Innocence. However... This fragment is... different."

"What do you mean by 'different'?" The question was really hard to ask, I was too scared of the answer.

"It's not one of the original pieces of Innocence. It's brand new."

We all gaped at her in shock and confusion. I squeezed Allen's hand tightly. I needed his comfort. Not only was our baby an accommodator, but she had to add _that_ on top of it. This time it was Komui who spoke. "And what exactly does that mean, Hevlaska?"

"Much like how a baby is made up of its parents, this Innocence fragment is composed of Crowned Clown and the Dark Boots."

I felt my frown deepen. Always the scientist, Komui asked another question. "How is that possible? Innocence can't reproduce."

"I don't know. I've never seen the creation of a new fragment before today. I can only speculate that it happened because one of the parent fragments is the Heart."

Allen's sigh filled the silence that followed. "Well it's not like we didn't already suspect that one of us had it."

We all smiled briefly, but the silence continued. I summoned my courage and spoke. "I have a question..."

"Yes, Lenalee?"

"Umm... Which happened first?" At their blank looks I rephrased the question. "Is our baby older than its Innocence?"

"What do you mean, Lenalee?"

I smiled hesitantly at my brother. "I want to know if I got pregnant before or after our Innocence created that new fragment."

Allen gave me an odd look and squeezed my hand. "And what exactly would that tell you?"

"It would tell me if our Innocence caused me to get pregnant."

Hevlaska sighed and shook her head. "From what I can tell, the two things happened at the same time. As for whether or not it was orchestrated: in my opinion, the pregnancy was an accident and your Innocence simply took advantage of the situation."

Allen pulled me a little closer. "Is that what you wanted to hear?"

I sighed. "I don't know. On the one hand, it would have been easier to explain my pregnancy to Central if the Innocence had caused it. They wouldn't be able to get mad at us for being irresponsible or having an illegitimate child." I gave my brother a very specific look. "But on the other hand... It's a relief to hear that our baby is completely our own, if you understand that."

Allen nodded. "I think so. Even though it was unplanned, we weren't manipulated into making it."

The room fell silent once more. But this time it was because my brother was clearly thinking hard about something and we were waiting for him to share. "Speaking of Central...

"This development cannot leave this room. No one aside from the four of us can know about it. As far as everyone else is concerned, Allen and Lenalee's baby has a parasitic Innocence. There's absolutely no reason to tell them any more than that."

"Isn't that a little extreme, Komui-san?" I was glad Allen said it, because I was thinking it.

My brother gave us both a hard look. "And what do you think will happen when Central learns that your two Innocence fragments created a brand new fragment?"

My gaze fell to the floor. I was too scared to speak. I heard Allen sigh beside me. "That's a fair point. Whatever it is isn't going to be good. And I'd rather not have them examining my every move again."

"Then it's all agreed. We keep this a secret-"

"Komui." Hevlaska interrupted my brother. "Maybe it's best if you throw your weight as the supervisor into that."

"You're right." Komui nodded before he turned back to me and Allen. "This isn't a request, it's an order. The true origins of this new Innocence fragment need to be kept secret from everyone. There will be no telling anyone about it. Do I make myself clear?"

We both nodded. Komui turned back to Hevlaska. "The same goes for you too, Hevlaska. Understand?"

"Yes. ... Thank you."

Komui bowed slightly and then he left, gesturing for us to follow him.

.x.x.

We went back to Komui's lab and he ran some more tests on us. And the baby. It was all much too weird. Especially with being in Lenalee's body. The tests on the baby involved parts of my fiancée's body I was very uncomfortable with thinking about outside of the context of sex.

And Lenalee was hovering the whole time. She was giving me that worried look she always gave me when I got wounded. But it was magnified times ten because she was worried about the baby too. If I was paranoid, I'd probably think she didn't trust me to keep it alive during this whole fiasco.

And to top it all off, that look was on _my_ face and it was creeping me out. "Umm, Lena? Would you mind waiting outside for a little bit?"

She protested, but Komui agreed that if her presence was making me uncomfortable then she should leave. Of course it was just as uncomfortable having her brother performing the tests, but there wasn't anything I could do about that; having one of the doctors or nurses do it would have been even worse.

I stared at the ceiling while Komui finished. Because I was so mortified it seemed to take forever. But at least Lenalee wasn't watching.

And then Komui tried to lecture me again. I rolled my eyes at him. "Look. It was an accident. We used protection. It's not my fault it didn't work. And your sister is over the moon. She's deliriously happy to be having a baby. So can you stop with the lectures?"

He immediately started whining. It was the usual nonsense about octopi touching his sister. And by the end I was even more terrified of what he was going to do to me when things got back to normal.

I sighed. It was time to play dirty. "Look Komui, how about a truce? I'll deal with a certain stalker of your sister's, and you'll leave me alone once I'm back in my body."

Komui blinked, startled by the change of subject. "You know about that?"

"Of course I do. I just didn't have a way to deal with it before now." I smiled innocently at him. "So what do you say? Forgive me for getting your sister pregnant, and I'll make Bak wish he'd never met her."

The supervisor smiled deviously as he shook my hand. "You pull that off and I promise I'll never say another word against your relationship. But if you fail then all bets are off."

.x.x.

The screams coming from Bak Chan's nightmares would be heard for months to come. And everyone knew better than to ask what caused them. Especially when the initial event was preceded by a visit from Allen and Lenalee. The workers at the Asian Branch were all well aware of what the white haired exorcist's black side was capable of, and they knew ignorance was best in a case like this.

Lenalee had been hesitant to participate at first, but when Allen told her of his deal with Komui, she reluctantly agreed to help. Of course, once she learned that the blond man really was stalking her, she became more than willing to let her fiancé use her body to terrify the man to his very soul. Was it overkill? Probably. But she didn't care.

.x.x.

Komui had us announce our engagement at dinner that night. Ideally we would have waited until we were back in our own bodies, but with the baby on the way we didn't really have a choice. The whole cafeteria was dead silent following the announcement. All eyes were glued, not on me and Allen, but on my brother.

He calmly and coolly told everyone that it was true. It surprised me, but then he had made a promise to Allen, and my brother was a man of his word.

Allen and I attempted to answer questions, but it got confusing really fast. We didn't know which of us was supposed to answer which question. Did I answer the ones addressed to me, or the ones addressed to Allen since I was in his body? He didn't seem to know either. _I guess we're not going to be able to keep that a secret either_. I sighed and spoke to everyone. "I know you're all curious about why we came home early from our last mission.

"Well, there was a fight with an akuma, something went wrong, and we ended up switching bodies. So um, I'm Lenalee, and that's Allen." I pointed at my own body, and as I did, Allen rolled up his left sleeve and showed everyone his Innocence arm.

There were gasps and everyone started talking at once. I turned to Allen just in time to see him pale and bolt from the room.

It only took a heartbeat for me to decide to follow him. He had somewhat recovered from his melancholy mood, now that my brother was no longer a problem, but until he was back to his normal, smiling self I would be worried about him. I couldn't leave him to suffer through my morning sickness without me.

.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.

A/N #3: Lots happened this chapter. I'd love to know what you thought.


	6. Chapter 6

A/N: Thanks for the reviews! You guys are awesome!

.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.

The next week passed without much fanfare. Everyone forgot about Allen and Lenalee's engagement. They saw no displays of affection between the pair, and Komui was much too calm about the whole thing. It had to have been a joke that wasn't funny and no one got. The general consensus was that their supposed engagement had been forced on them by the supervisor and his insane sister-complex: in an effort to protect her purity, he was forcing Lenalee to marry the young man who had switched bodies with her.

The body swap got boring rather quickly as well. They couldn't tease the pair, not when one was Lenalee and the other was in her body. Komui's wrath would be fierce. Lavi was the only one crazy enough to try, and he'd been gone on a mission for the last four days.

By the end of that week, everyone had finally gotten to a point where they knew that Lenalee was really Allen and Allen was really Lenalee. And while it was a relief to the pair that they no longer had to correct everyone all the time, they wanted nothing more than to be back in their own bodies.

After a week of morning sickness, and the strangeness of it happening in the evening, Allen was done with being pregnant. He wanted to be able to eat what he wanted, when he wanted, and not have to worry about it being bad for the baby or making him throw up.

Lenalee had worried over him too much to fully enjoy her week free of pregnancy symptoms. But as much as Allen wanted to not be pregnant, she wanted to go back to being pregnant twice as much.

But they'd made it. Their week was nearly over. By Komui's calculations, they'd wake up in their own bodies the next morning. They lay together in Lenalee's bed that night, just like they had every night since the incident.

It was still awkward, knowing that the other was in their body. Anything more than holding hands always freaked one of them out. Even something as simple as lying beside each other was hard, cuddling was out of the question.

But that night Lenalee braved the awkwardness, and embraced Allen. He sighed, but didn't push her away, so there was at least some progress. She laughed lightly before she spoke. "You know, you really surprised me, Allen."

"How so?"

She blushed in embarrassment. "I didn't expect you to handle being female so well. I thought you would freak out a little more."

"To be honest, I did too." He laughed just a little. "I thought I'd fall apart. Especially when you told me you were pregnant. That was kind of ... ... Well, let's just say I felt like going to bed and staying there until this whole thing was over."

Lenalee smiled. "Yes, something like that is what I expected you to try to do. It's been a crazy week. But, somehow, I think I love you more than I did before."

"I love you too." He leaned closer and kissed her briefly, pulling away before the sweet gesture got too weird. "And tomorrow things will be back to normal, and I'll finally be able to enjoy having a baby on the way."

.x.x.

I woke up slowly, yawning and stretching my limbs. I couldn't bring myself to open my eyes, I was too comfortable. Allen was still beside me, I could hear him breathing and feel his weight pressed into the mattress. We were finally back in our own bodies, a slow morning like this was needed.

I snuggled closer to Allen and wrapped my arms around him. And promptly shrieked at what I felt.

.x.x.

I was startled awake by Lenalee giving off one sharp shriek. It wasn't loud enough to disturb anyone else, but she was literally screaming in my ear.

My eyes flew open and I bolted upright. Instantly regretting the sudden movement, I collapsed back onto the mattress. I wasn't too freaked out however, as I had grown familiar with the muscles in my back being tight in the morning, and that slightly queasy feeling in my stomach. I didn't understand why Lenalee wanted her pregnant body back so badly.

"Sorry Allen, did I wake you?"

I snorted. "You screamed in my ear. Of course you woke me. What's wrong, Lena?"

"It's morning." That was all she said, like the rest was obvious.

I yawned. "Yeah. And?"

She sighed and whimpered a little. "We haven't switched back. We were supposed to have switched back by now."

It took a second for what she said to click. I rolled over and buried my face in the pillow. "Dammit."

"Allen. Language."

I couldn't help laughing at her tone, though it came out a little forced. "So you're allowed to scream, but I'm not allowed to swear? That's pretty hypocritical of you, Lena."

I couldn't see her, but I could tell she was sticking her tongue out at me. "You're not as upset as I thought you'd be."

"Hmm... I guess I'm not."

"How come? Haven't you been against this whole thing from the start?" Her voice was full of confusion.

I sighed and rolled over to face her. "Your brother was only guessing that we'd be back to normal this morning. And he still has no clue what happened to make us switch. So it's not that surprising that he was wrong."

"I guess you have a point." She frowned at me for a moment, but then she shrugged and climbed out of bed. She stretched a little and then wandered over to the dresser. If she'd been in her own body, I'd have been practically drooling at the display, but even after a week I still had trouble seeing her in my body.

The dresser was another source of concern. After we swapped bodies, my clothes had gradually been moved into Lenalee's room. As of yesterday, everything I had was here. We were officially living together.

Not that that was a major step, we were going to be married in a couple months. And a few months after that, we'd have a baby. I knew it was a little late to be squeamish over commitment. That wasn't exactly the problem. Mostly it just felt so sudden...

I was snapped out of my thoughts by something hitting me in the head. I gathered up the clothes as I sat up. Lenalee was laughing at me. "Hurry up and get dressed, sleepyhead. I want to go talk to my brother."

"Fine, fine." I stuck my tongue out at her. It took me seconds to pull on the outfit she had thrown at me. I wanted to enjoy the sight of her naked body, but all it did was remind me of the switch, so I always ended up changing as quickly as possible. "I still don't see why I have to wear a skirt. It's so embarrassing."

"We've had this conversation before, Allen. I don't have any pants for-" Her lecture ended abruptly when she finally turned around and saw me smirking at her. "Very funny. Now if you're ready, let's go."

I followed her down to Komui's office, teasing her the whole time about how bossy she was, lovingly of course. I didn't particularly mind wearing her skirts anymore, but I did mind that she didn't let me dress myself. She wasn't listening to me, but that was how we dealt with stress. She internalized things and I focused on pointless details.

To say Komui was surprised to see that we were still switched would be an understatement. He nearly exploded. After Lenalee calmed him down, we were subjected to another round of tests. But it ended quicker than usual; my stomach growling had Komui immediately dismissing me for breakfast.

.x.x.

When Komui sent Allen away, I stayed behind to talk to him. I knew my brother well, I could tell something was on his mind. I sat on the edge of his desk, like I always did. "What's bothering you, Nii-san?"

He sighed as he closed the door, deliberately keeping his back to me. Allen wasn't the only guy in my life who didn't like seeing me in his body. But I couldn't blame Komui for that, it must have been driving him crazy seeing the man who got me pregnant whenever he looked at me. "Is Allen ok? He seems ...off today."

I laughed briefly. "He's been off since this whole thing started. But he's actually doing better today. He was teasing me while we were getting dressed this morning, and he hasn't done that in a while." I paused in thought for a moment before I continued. "Though that could have easily been because of the hormones in his system. He'd probably be in an even better mood if you would let us go into town today to shop for maternity clothes."

"You think Allen wants to go clothes shopping in your body?" The brief look he gave me said I was crazy.

I shrugged. "I think that Allen would gladly try on women's clothing if it meant he could stop wearing skirts."

Komui nodded. "You have point. And you're going to have to do that soon anyway. But take someone with you; neither of you is in the best fighting shape right now. Miranda should be getting back around lunchtime if you want to take her."

"Lavi's with her, right?"

"He is. ... You want to take _Lavi_?" My brother gave me that look again.

I frowned. "Not particularly. But he already knows about the baby, whereas we'd have to tell Miranda. And I don't want to have to deal with the outburst she's going to have when she finds out."

Komui nodded a few times, but then he abruptly stopped. "Speaking of the baby... You and Allen need to get married before you start to show."

"No." The response was so obvious that it was automatic. "We will get married after we switch back. And I don't care if I _am_ obviously pregnant when it happens. I don't care if I go into labor during the ceremony. I am _not_ getting married in a guy's body."

"Lenalee." Komui placed his hands on my shoulders like he was begging. "If your child ends up being illegitimate, Central is going to be furious."

"Relax, Komui. I have every intention of being married before we have the baby. I just don't want to do it while I'm in Allen's body." I smiled gently at him. "And if worst comes to worst, the baby already has an Innocence fragment."

"Yes, I suppose there is that." Komui forced a smile at me then nudged me towards the door. "Now go get some breakfast. I'm going to start going through this data and see if I can't figure out how to get you two back to normal."

"Thank you, Nii-san."

.x.x.

Lenalee seemed really excited when she joined me in the cafeteria. I very much wanted to laugh at the way she struggled to balance her tray, but it was hard. Her happy bounce was wrong when it was my white hair falling in her eyes, and the way my scar crinkled with her smile made me want to cry.

"I've got good news, Allen."

"Oh?"

"Komui says we can go into town later today."

I narrowed my eyes at her. "What for?"

She leaned close and whispered in my ear. "Maternity clothes. Duh."

She wanted me to go shopping for clothes? While I was in her body? I abruptly scooted away from her, more than a little creeped out. "Why the hell would I want to do that?"

She laughed at my reaction. When it finally passed, she smirked at me. "You'll have pants you can wear."

I groaned and buried my face in my hands. "How is it that you always know what to say to make me do things I don't want to?"

"It's a magical power I gained when you proposed to me." She punched me playfully in the shoulder. "Don't worry so much, Allen. It'll be fun!"

.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.

A/N #2: Stay tuned for next time (12/1) when our body swapped couple goes shopping for maternity clothes with Lavi!

A/N #3: Also: go check out my new story "Dreams and Nightmares". It's a prequel to this story.


	7. Chapter 7

Lavi wanted to gag over how sickly sweet Allen and Lenalee were when they were shopping together. Based on how reserved they were around the Order (he hadn't suspected a thing after all), the redhead thought they were just the type of couple that weren't into public displays of affection. He was apparently wrong about that.

Their behavior was only reserved out of respect for Komui. They knew that despite having his approval, he was not comfortable with them being together, so they kept the affection to a bare minimum.

That's not to say that they acted like newlyweds outside of the Order, they were in the wrong bodies after all, but for someone like Lavi, who had only seen them hold hands, they may as well have been.

They were expecting their first child, and they were both very excited to be parents. Every little baby thing they passed in town made them coo, and they were easily distracted by anything that reminded them of their impending parenthood. It was a rare worry-free time for them, but it annoyed the heck out of Lavi.

When they finally focused, getting maternity clothes went off without a hitch. The shopkeepers never suspected that the Chinese mother-to-be they were assisting was actually a man in a woman's body. Allen's good mood had held out and the shopping trip ended up being quick and painless.

On the way back to headquarters, Lavi started griping. "I feel like you two owe me something. I was expecting to see freaking out and arguing, not to be a third wheel on your date."

Lenalee snickered. "You weren't a third wheel, you were a bodyguard."

He stuck his tongue out at her, but it wasn't her he was upset with. "Ok fine. But Allen owes me a meltdown."

"What do you mean by that, Lavi?"

Lavi stared incredulously at Allen's confused expression. "You weren't supposed to _like_ shopping for _maternity_ clothes. You were supposed to fight it and refuse to try things on and things like that!"

"Oh, that." Allen shrugged. "I was bribed into cooperating."

"Bribed? With what? What could you possibly have been offered that would have made you _that_ cooperative? It wasn't sex, there's no way you two are doing that while you're in the wrong bodies."

The comment earned him a slap to the back of the head from Lenalee. "Baka. Get your head out of the gutter."

He frowned at her as he rubbed his head. Allen's body was stronger than Lenalee's, so her slap hurt a lot more than it usually did. "Can't. I'm a guy. It's always there. You should already know that, seeing as you're _pregnant_."

Lenalee mimicked his frown. "Allen doesn't have that problem, at least not to _your_ extent. I had to convince him to sleep with me."

"That's because I was terrified of your brother, not because I wasn't thinking about it."

Allen's quiet correction went unheard, as Lavi spoke over him. "You had to convince him to sleep with you? How exactly did that happen?"

Lenalee made a face. "Technically, I ... threatened him."

Lavi stared wild eyed at Allen, who smiled sheepishly at the redhead. "She told me that if I didn't stay the night with her then she'd call Komui and tell him I tried to rape her."

That only made Lavi freak out more. "And you actually slept with her after that?!"

Allen laughed. "Of course not!"

Lavi relaxed, but his smile fell with Allen's next words. "But only because we didn't have protection."

"You really gave in that easily, Allen? I thought you had more of a backbone than that."

Allen punched Lavi in the shoulder. "Idiot. She obviously wasn't serious. It was just her way of telling me she was ready for more, that's all."

Lenalee spoke up then, adding on to his explanation. "And in my defense, we'd been dating for six months and he hadn't even tried to take my shirt off yet. I figured it was time to knock some sense into him."

.x.x.

A week had passed since we were originally supposed to have changed back. My brother had done more tests on us, but he still had no insights as to what had happened to us.

The only good thing was that Allen's overall mood had continued to improve. He wasn't happy, but he had at least started smiling again. He was always at his worst at dinner though. Knowing that he was immediately going to throw up everything he ate made him unpleasant to be around. But I didn't mind that: so long as it was the pregnancy making him miserable, he could take his frustrations out on me as much as he wanted.

We trained together quite a bit during that week. It was something to do, and so long as we didn't get carried away, it was good for Allen to be doing something physical. Lavi had made a big fuss over our training, but when it turned out that the activations of our Innocence looked basically the same as they normally did, he got bored immediately.

And that's when the bad news came.

Granted, getting assigned to a mission isn't exactly 'bad news', but given the circumstances it definitely felt like it. I was going to have to leave Allen, and therefore our baby, behind. For at least a week. To go on a mission in _his_ body. As far as I was concerned, it was the worst possible news I could have gotten.

I tried to refuse to go, but that didn't go over well with Allen. "Lena, if you can't leave the baby now, how are you going to handle leaving it after it's born? You can't stay with it forever, you know."

"Ugh. I know, but-"

"Lena. I'm starting to think you don't trust me. I'm not going to let anything happen to our child."

I frowned at him. Having my usual guilt-tripping techniques turned against me was not pleasant. Allen gave me a brief hug. "Look, I know it's not fair. I don't like it either. It should be me struggling with leaving you behind while you're stuck at headquarters on maternity leave, not this, but you're going to have to do it."

And so here I was, walking through the streets of this random town with Marie. We'd fought a few akuma, but it wasn't anything noteworthy; Allen's body was probably more flexible than my own, so there was no need to adjust how I fought. The whole thing just felt normal.

Or it would have if I wasn't constantly worrying about Allen and the baby.

Marie just laughed it off whenever I got especially distracted. I tried to apologize, but that only made him laugh more. "Lenalee, I understand. It's hard leaving the one you love behind when you go on a mission. Miranda and I still have a horrible time dealing with it. And it must be even worse for you and Allen with the baby on the way."

His words made me panic, no one was supposed to know about the baby yet. "What are you talking about? There's no baby."

My pathetic attempt at a denial just made Marie laugh more. "I'm blind, Lenalee, not stupid. I knew you were pregnant before you did."

.x.x.

Being without Lenalee sucked a whole lot more than I thought it would. I missed her support; I couldn't do this pregnancy thing without her. The physical symptoms were hard enough to deal with, but she was what kept me grounded when the hormones got out of control. It definitely didn't help that she was out on a mission and I had to add "worry for her safety" to the list of things that were stressing me out.

And hanging out with Lavi didn't help either; he was too amused by me being pregnant to be of any support.

Especially right now, as I knelt in front of the toilet and puked my guts out. Lenalee would have helped me keep her hair out of my way and then fetched a glass of water when I was done. Lavi just watched. And teased me. "I told you that you should have been watching what you were eating. The baby probably didn't like one of those many things you _inhaled_."

I threw the bar of soap I was using to wash my hands at him. "Shut up. It's morning sickness. I'd be throwing up no matter what I ate."

He just laughed as the soap bounced futilely off his shoulder. "Dude, it's like seven at night. It's nowhere near morning."

"Morning sickness can happen at any time of the day, moron. Lenalee happens to get hers in the evening."

As I headed out the door, I bumped directly into Kanda. The samurai grimaced as he pushed past me. "Che. Baka Moyashi. Aren't you in the wrong bathroom?"

"My name is Allen, Bakanda!" I stuck my tongue out at him. "I may be in a girl's body, but I'm still a man!"

Kanda snorted, and Lavi laughed as he wrapped his arm around my shoulder. "I agree with Yuu-chan, buddy. Lenalee's overprotective older brother probably does too. You really should be using the women's room."

Ignoring Kanda as he threatened Lavi's life, I shoved the redhead off me. "Well it doesn't matter what you think. I'm more comfortable using the men's room, and Lenalee agrees with me, so you can keep your opinion to yourself."

I caught the look the two shared. Lavi's smirk sent a shiver down my spine. "Oh really? I think what you really mean is that your girlfriend doesn't want you looking at other women, so she ordered you to stay out of the ladies' room."

"And being the spineless wimp you are, you obeyed. Right, Moyashi?" The look on Kanda's face as he piled on made me want to hit him.

"Shut up." I had more to say, but the urge to vomit hit me hard, and I barely made it to the toilet.

Behind me, I heard Kanda raise an eyebrow. "What's wrong with the Moyashi?"

"Morning sickness." Lavi snorted. "Or at least that's what he says. Personally I think he ate something he wasn't supposed to."

When I turned around the expression on Kanda's face was really weird. "'Morning sickness'? Isn't that what women get when they're pregnant?"

I scowled at him as I made my way back to the sink to rinse out my mouth. "Yes, I'm stuck in my fiancée's pregnant body. Can we move on? Lavi's already made all the jokes."

I fully expected the samurai to laugh at me. Instead, he had me pinned to the wall within seconds. I briefly panicked at the murderous look on his face, but then I recalled that Kanda and Lenalee had a weird brother-sister relationship. "What do you want from me, Bakanda? Yes, I knocked Lenalee up, but I'm taking responsibility for it. We're engaged. We'll be married before it's born. What else could I possibly do?"

He growled at me, but I cut him off before he spoke. "If you don't want me to vomit on you, you might want to let me go."

The instant the words were out, Kanda released me and I bolted back to the toilet, losing what little was left of my dinner. "Che. You got her pregnant, and now you're the one who's having to deal with it. That seems like a fitting punishment to me. Just know that if you hurt her, I _will_ kill you, Allen."

.x.x.

Finally back from my mission, I hurried towards my room so I could ditch my suitcase before tracking down Allen. But as I walked down my hallway, I was stopped by someone blocking my path. Kanda was leaning against the door to my room.

It was really odd. He'd been making himself scarce ever since the whole body switching thing started; he wouldn't let me meditate with him anymore, and I hadn't seen anything more than the back of his ponytail in almost three weeks. Why did he suddenly want to be around me again now?

That question was answered the moment he opened his mouth. "You slept with the Moyashi?"

If it weren't for the complete disbelief in his voice, I might have been scared of the sudden confrontation. But before I could respond to the rhetorical question, he continued to talk. "Are you crazy?! Why would you do that? Better yet, why would you let him knock you up? His self-sacrificing attitude is going to get him killed one of these days, and then where will you be?"

"What, you don't think having a kid will change that?" After the sarcastic comment, I sighed and got serious. It was very rare for Kanda to actually verbalize his concern. "I know. Allen has a problem." Kanda snorted, obviously disagreeing with me describing Allen's problems as singular. "But we're working on it. At least something good came out of that whole fiasco with the Fourteenth Noah; his survival instinct is a lot stronger than it used to be."

When Kanda's only response was to scowl at me, I smiled brightly. "I really do think that having a child will help. Allen's going to be one of those overprotective parents who won't let their kid do anything for fear that they'll get hurt. It won't be hard at all to convince him that getting himself killed would hurt our baby."


	8. Chapter 8

A/N: If it's been a while since you read the previous chapters, you may want to reread them and refresh your memory. This chapter references previous conversations, and I'd hate for you to get confused because you forgot those original conversations.

.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.

Two months. It had been _two months_ since Allen and I swapped bodies. And there were still no signs as to why it had happened or when we'd be switching back. Not even Allen's nineteenth birthday had done the trick. It was especially frustrating because I was growing used to it: I had adjusted to being male.

What made it even worse was that I was four months pregnant. Or at least, my _body_ was. Of the eleven weeks I'd known about my pregnancy, I'd only gotten to be pregnant for two of them. Allen had been the pregnant one for a lot longer than I had. It wasn't fair.

At least Central still didn't know about the baby. I could handle the occasional _brief_ mission, but having them hassle me over an unplanned pregnancy, one that I wasn't even able to experience, would be torture. I worried constantly about what they'd do if they found out the true origin of my baby's Innocence.

I paced outside the room where my brother was doing some tests on Allen and the baby. It was the routine now, whenever the exams got too private Allen would kick me out. I didn't understand why he was so embarrassed, it was _my_ body after all, but it was pointless to argue that with him.

Every second that passed added to my anxiety. I knew Allen and the baby were fine, but that didn't stop me from worrying about everything that could go wrong.

I stopped my pacing as I suddenly came face to face with a familiar redhead. He was scowling at me, and that confused me. This man was always a perfect gentleman around me. "Oi, idiot apprentice. Are you going to greet me properly or are you going to stand there gaping like a fish?"

It wasn't until he spoke that I remembered that he wasn't seeing me, and given how long he had been away from headquarters he probably didn't know what had happened. I smiled and bowed slightly to him. "Good afternoon, General Cross. If you're looking for Allen, he's in the infirmary with my brother."

The look on Cross's face was priceless, but it faded to a neutral expression quickly. He knew Allen well enough to have figured out that I wasn't him. I briefly wondered if he would know who I was, but that got answered the second he spoke. "Miss Lee? Why do you look like Allen?"

I smiled despite having to explain this for what felt like the millionth time. "There was an incident on a mission a couple months ago. Allen and I switched bodies."

Cross fixed me with a very critical stare. "And Komui is ok with this?"

"He's trying pretty frantically to figure out how to change us back, but for the most part he's ok."

"Your psycho older brother is ok with a boy being in your body and you being in a boy's body?" His one eye narrowed and it was obvious that he didn't believe me.

I shrugged. "I think he's just relieved that that boy is my fiancé and not one of the other guys."

"'Fiancé'?" Cross seemed to have a problem with that word. "You and that idiot are engaged?"

"He proposed five months ago."

"And you said 'yes'?!"

My sarcastic response was cut off by Allen coming out into the hall. Cross's eye went straight to his bloated stomach. It wasn't much of a bump, the theory around the Order was that my body couldn't handle Allen's eating habits, but it was clear Cross recognized it for what it was. He laughed outright. "I was going to ask if you two had slept together yet, but clearly that's moot now."

Allen frowned deeply. "What are you doing here, Master Cross?"

Cross smirked at him. "At the moment I'm having a nice conversation with the lovely lady you knocked up. Tell me brat, are you enjoying being pregnant?"

The rhetorical question was met with an angry hiss. But all that did was make Cross laugh. "Relax, Allen. I was just teasing you. Honestly, I don't think I've ever been prouder of you. A beautiful fiancée, a baby on the way; you actually managed to do something good with your life."

The look of utter confusion on Allen's face would have been priceless had it actually been his face and not mine. But before I could react, Cross was wrapping an arm around my shoulder and guiding me away. He called over his shoulder at Allen. "You wait here. I need to finish talking to Miss Lee in private."

As soon as we were out of sight and earshot, the arm around my shoulder grew tight. "You're pregnant?"

I nodded, too scared of the anger in Cross's voice to speak. He grit his teeth and muttered a couple curse words. "Did that idiot know you were pregnant when he proposed?"

"No." I shook my head, relieved but still wary now that I knew that Allen was the target of the redhead's anger. "I didn't get pregnant until after we'd been engaged for a few weeks, and he didn't find out about the baby until this whole body switching thing happened."

That answer seemed to appease him as he loosened his grip on my shoulder. "Were you trying to conceive or was he an irresponsible idiot?"

"Umm, I'm not really sure what that means, but the pregnancy was an accident. The condom we used didn't work."

"But he did use it." His hold on me tightened again.

I nodded. "He refuses to touch me if we don't have one."

Cross loosened his grip, but he didn't let go. "Tell me about this 'body switching thing'. What happened?"

I sighed and shook my head. "We don't know. There was an explosion during a fight with an akuma, and we woke up like this."

"And you said this happened a couple months ago?"

I nodded. "Two to be specific."

There was a moment of silence before Cross spoke again. "And you were already pregnant when this happened?"

"Yes. I was two months pregnant at the time, and I'd known for about two weeks."

Cross frowned, obviously thinking hard about something, and I couldn't help wondering what it was. "The two of you haven't done anything since then, right?"

It took a second to figure out what he meant by that, and I blushed hard once I did. "Allen barely lets me hold his hand anymore."

My response was met with laughter and a muttered 'idiot'. Realizing it was at Allen's expense and not mine, I let it pass. However... General Cross was probably the one person who knew my fiancé better than I did... "Can I ask you a question about Allen?"

He raised his eyebrow at me, almost looking curious about what I had to say. "Shoot."

"I... I think this whole thing ... might have been ... too much for him. ...He doesn't smile like he used to and he barely looks at me anymore." I was babbling now; I certainly didn't know why I was pouring my heart out to _Cross_ of all people. "I'm worried that he might ... break up with me when this is all over... I-"

"I'm going to stop you there, Miss Lee." My mouth snapped shut at the look Cross was giving me. "This may seem like an odd question, but does Allen swear around you? And I don't mean when you're in the room. Does he swear when you're alone together?"

I narrowed my eyes at the redhead. "Yes... Usually it's just when he's upset over something, but it's been getting more frequent lately. What does this have to do with-?"

This time when Cross laughed it _was_ at my expense. "It means he loves you. If he really was distancing himself from you, he'd be censoring himself, not swearing more."

I tried to respond to that, but no words came out, and that just made Cross laugh again. "You remember what he was like when he first came here, right? All politeness and fake smiles, and it was next to impossible to tell what he was really thinking?"

"Yes." I nodded hesitantly. "That was the Allen I had to persuade to go out with me, and he was definitely not the same Allen who proposed to me five months ago. What's your point?"

"My point is that his relationship with you isn't what's bothering him. Allen's problem is something else entirely."

As relieving as it was to hear that Allen wasn't going to dump me any time soon, that statement only worried me more. Fortunately Cross didn't wait for me to ask before he explained.

"Look, you've been told all your life that you're pretty, so you don't have this problem. But Allen..." Cross paused to sigh slightly. "Ever since he was a child, Allen's been called things like 'monster' and 'demon'. He has very little pride in his appearance. I'd even go so far as to say that he considers himself ugly."

I nodded. "I can see why you would think that. He definitely doesn't like it when I tell him he's beautiful."

That made Cross laugh. "Anyway, it's not being in your body that Allen hates, it's seeing _you_ in his. It physically hurts him to see someone so beautiful reduced to something he sees as worthless."

Oh. "But what can I possibly do to make him see that he's wrong?"

Cross frowned in thought. "Convince him you love him. Do something drastic."

I snorted. "Like tell him point blank that I love him so much I'd abort our unborn child if he didn't want it?"

Cross gave me an odd look. "That's morbid, but yes, something along those lines."

When I remained silent, he suddenly got in my face. "Wait. That wasn't hypothetical, was it?"

I shook my head, too distraught over the memory to speak.

Cross swore under his breath again. "That idiot..."

.x.x.

It seemed like Lenalee had gone off with Master Cross hours ago. I tried to be patient and wait, but my curiosity got the better of me. I snuck down the hall after them.

I stopped just around the corner from them, peeking my head out just enough to see them without being seen. Lenalee had her back to me, but I could see Cross and he looked pissed. He swore a couple times and then he called me an idiot. It made me wonder what Lenalee had just told him.

Then a strange look came over Cross's face. It was only there for a second, but I knew what it meant: he knew I was there. Holding in a gasp, I pressed myself closer to the wall and pretended to be invisible.

My wildly beating heart stopped completely with his next words. "I have a very serious question for you, Miss Lee. Are you settling for Allen?"

I was scared of Lenalee's response. I knew what it would be and I didn't want to hear her say those words. I was well aware that she was settling for me; I was simply her best choice with the war going on. She may love me now, but I knew that if the circumstances were different she wouldn't have looked at me twice. And I was ok with that; it didn't change the fact that I loved her madly, but hearing her say it out loud was going to kill me.

"I don't understand."

Her words made it hard to breathe. Was she faking ignorance for the sake of appearances, or did she really not understand what Cross had asked her?

"Wait. Are you actually asking if I think I deserve someone better than him?" She sounded legitimately offended, but that didn't make sense to me.

There was silence, and I could picture the look Cross was giving her, telling her to answer the question before he lost his patience.

The silence grew tense as I waited for Lenalee's response. Then it was suddenly broken by a sound that could only have been from Lenalee slapping Master Cross. I cautiously peeked around the corner and my suspicion was confirmed, his cheek was red and she looked livid. She started shouting, like I expected, but the words she said were far from what I was thinking she'd say. "How could you even suggest such a thing?! And after I just finished telling you how badly I love him?! I can't be with anyone better, because there _isn't_ anyone better! I love Allen with everything I have! He is more than I ever could have wished for! I-"

Her next words died in her throat as Cross forcibly turned her around and she saw me watching.

But I didn't notice that. I was crying too hard to see anything.


	9. Chapter 9

A/N: Just FYI: this chapter is the main reason this fic is rated M. It's a little on the smutty side.

.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.

I stepped towards Allen, intending to pull him into a tight hug and comfort him, but instead he turned and ran the other way. This whole thing must have hit him hard if he was crying like that. I wondered how long he had been listening to us talk. It must not have been very long... Oh. I scowled at Cross. "You knew he was there, didn't you? That's why you asked that stupid question."

"Maybe." The redhead smirked. "Sometimes you have to ask stupid questions when dealing with idiots."

"That's mean."

Cross laughed. "You wanted to know what was bothering him, and now you do: he doesn't think he's good enough for you. You should probably do something about that..."

I sighed heavily as I looked in the direction my fiancé disappeared. "Yeah, but what?"

The general's suggestion made my eyes nearly bug out of my head. It was a crazy idea, but it would certainly work. The only question was: would I be able to go through with it?

Whatever expression was on my face made Cross laugh. "Think about it, Miss Lee. I guarantee it will work."

"That's not what I'm worried about." I shuddered at the thought of doing it; it wasn't just weird, it was borderline psychotic. "How could I even begin to do that with him while we're like this? It's creepy. It's-"

Cross cut off my babbling with a snicker. "I suggest you start with finding him, and take it one step at a time from there. This whole thing's pointless if he disappears."

I paled at the thought and immediately took off down the corridor after Allen.

The first place I looked was his bedroom. It was empty. And not 'he wasn't there' empty, but 'empty' empty. There wasn't a single personal item in the room: no gloves on the nightstand, no blankets on the bed, no random pieces of clothing on the floor. There was even a layer of dust on all the furniture. This room had been vacant for a while. But if that was the case then where had Allen been sleeping lately? Oh, right. _My_ room. Ever since this whole body swap thing happened, we'd been sharing the bed in my room. And based on the state of this room, Allen wasn't even using his own bed when I was away on missions.

Acting on impulse, I headed to my room next. Though based on what I'd just learned, it was actually 'our room' not 'my room'...

Allen was lying face down on the bed with his face buried in a pillow. I stood in the doorway, taking a moment to gather my thoughts before I drew attention to myself. If I was going to do what Cross said I should do, I had to do it now.

But it was really weird. Especially as I watched Allen, in my body, cry into that pillow. It was like looking into some weird mirror. He had taken out the ponytail that he usually wore in my hair, and the green locks were splayed in every direction.

Unsure where to start, I began with, "When did you move all of your things into my room?"

The noise Allen made was probably a snort of derision, but it was muffled by the pillow his face was still lodged in. "You did that. Two months ago."

.x.x.

"What? No I didn't."

The disbelief in Lenalee's voice made Allen look up. He propped himself up on his elbow and stared at her. After determining that she was serious, he raised an eyebrow at her and gestured at his body which she was currently in. "You're the one who brought all my clothes up here, Lena."

She blinked at him for a moment. "But what about your other things?"

Allen snorted at her again. "Lena, I don't have any other things."

"Oh." She bit her lip as she frowned, and the sight made Allen cringe internally. "But don't you have any mementos or souvenirs from your past?"

This time he outright laughed at her. "I moved around a lot, Lena. And any money I managed to get was spent on food or paying off Cross' debts."

She didn't know what to say to that, so she leaned back against the door and sighed. "So I guess we live together then."

Allen looked her over once more, but then he decided against prolonging the uncomfortable conversation they had to have, and collapsed back against the pillows. "Just say whatever it is you want to say, Lena."

Pushing away from the door, Lenalee moved to sit at the foot of the bed. She leaned back against the wall, and pulled Allen's feet into her lap, much like she had the night of their last serious discussion. Two months had passed, yet it was still so awkward seeing herself when she looked at Allen. "...How much of our conversation did you hear?"

"...Enough..." Allen sighed covered his face with his hands. "Lena, I- ... I feel like I owe you an apology. I-"

"Allen. You can stop. Cross explained it to me." She smiled gently at him and began rubbing his feet. Not only would it help Allen relax by relieving some of the stress from the pregnancy, but it was also her first step towards that crazy thing Cross had suggested. "This isn't about us. It's about you not liking yourself."

"What?! No, it's not! I-"

"Don't lie to me." Lenalee cut Allen off as quickly as she could. "I know you, Allen. You're going to try to convince me that you thought I was settling for you because I'm so beautiful or perfect that I deserve more. But the truth is that you think that you're not good enough for me. Right?"

She stared intently at him, daring him to deny it. He swallowed hard, but managed to hold in the lie he had been about to use.

Satisfied that she had scared Allen into keeping his mouth shut, Lenalee sighed. "Look, you want to know why I was talking to Cross in the first place? I was asking him how to keep _you_ from breaking up with _me_."

"Lena, I would never-!" Allen couldn't even make himself say the words, that's how awful the idea of dumping Lenalee was to him.

She used the silence following his outburst to change positions, lying beside him and staring up at the ceiling. "I know. You made your feelings on the subject pretty clear back when I told you I was pregnant. It was just a moment of self-doubt. You're not the only one who doesn't like themselves, you know. Though I don't think anyone else has it quite as extreme as you do."

The sideways look Allen gave her made Lenalee laugh. She moved so that she was kneeling over him, knees straddling his hips, hands on either side of his head, looking straight into his eyes. It was hard seeing her face like that, but focusing on Allen's silver irises made it easier. "For the record, I think that you are the most beautiful man I have ever met."

Allen frowned. "If you're not going to let me lie, then you shouldn't be allowed to lie either."

She rolled her eyes at him. "I'm not lying, idiot. You heard what I said to Cross, you know I meant all of it."

When Allen did nothing but stare at her, she leaned down, propping herself up on her elbows, and kissed him on the lips. She pulled away after only a few seconds, but stayed close enough that their noses were touching. "Looks like he was right. Talking is going to get me nowhere. Guess it's time to try it his way..."

To the outside observer, the scene would have looked perfectly normal: a white haired young man kneeling over a slender, green haired woman, making her moan as he left a hickey on her neck.

It was anything but normal for the body swapped pair.

Allen had to close his eyes; watching Lenalee do that to him while she was in his body was too much. It definitely didn't help that what she was doing felt good. The feeling of his currently female body growing aroused was beyond strange.

But he succeeded in pushing her away. "Wha- What are you doing, Lena?"

She smirked as she sat up. Then she silently began unbuttoning the shirt she wore. When the fabric began falling off her shoulders, she pulled the garment off and tossed it aside. Focusing her attention back on Allen, she didn't speak until she had undone all of the buttons of the blouse he was wearing. "I am going to convince you that I love you. And you are going to take it. After all, you are stuck in my body right now, and I know all of my most sensitive places..."

To prove her point, she leaned down and stuck her tongue into his exposed belly button.

Allen felt his breath hitch as his back arched off the mattress. The feeling of her tongue in his navel was sending sparks up his spine. When she pulled away, it took a few seconds for him to regain control of his breathing. "You- You like it when I do that?"

Lenalee giggled at the disbelief in his voice. "What do _you_ think?"

The question went unanswered as Allen stared up at the ceiling. Lenalee's one simple action had shattered everything he thought he knew. All his feelings of dislike towards himself were beginning to fall apart. Ever since they had switched bodies, Lenalee constantly made it clear to him that she hated seeing him in her body as much as he hated seeing her in his. That she would touch him like that while he was in her body was mind blowing all by itself. When he also considered that licking her belly button was one of those things that he thought she didn't like him doing to her, and that her body had very obviously enjoyed it, there was really only one conclusion: everything she had said that evening was true.

While Lenalee watched Allen think, she did some thinking of her own. However, hers was less "earth shattering realizations" and more praying that Cross' suggestion had worked. She had done what he told her to; she had gotten past the awkwardness of Allen being in her body and touched him sexually. If this didn't work, then she didn't know what to do next.

When his gaze cleared and he smiled up at her, she let herself relax. Allen sat up and kissed her briefly. "Thank you, Lenalee."

Before she could respond with anything more than a smile, Allen was kissing her again. This one was deep, and his tongue soon found its way into her mouth. She melted into the feeling; they hadn't kissed like that in months.

Lenalee wrapped her arms around Allen's shoulders and pulled him closer. She dismissed the strange feeling that shot through her body as their bare chests pressed together, and ignored the fact that those were her own breasts pushing against her chest; she focused solely on the emotional relief that came with their kiss.

She missed Allen slipping his hand into her pants, but she broke the kiss the second she felt his fingers touch her there. "What are you doing?"

Allen didn't answer her. Instead, he resumed their kiss and continued to stroke the male organ between her legs. He didn't stop until his free hand unfastened her pants. At some point during their kiss, his mind had cleared completely: his brain and emotions were all screwed up because he and Lenalee hadn't had sex since she'd gotten pregnant.

Lenalee suddenly found herself lying on her back, naked, with a very hard dick. She knew she should be protesting, but she couldn't seem to care. Especially as she watched Allen strip. The realization that they hadn't had sex in four months hit her, and it suddenly no longer mattered that they were in the wrong bodies. She needed Allen now...


	10. Chapter 10

A/N: Lavi narrates the second section of this chapter; it's important to remember that when he talks about Allen, he means Allen in Lenalee's body, and vice versa.

.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.

I woke to Allen shaking my shoulder. I felt awful. My body ached and I just wanted to go back to sleep. It didn't make any sense. After everything that had happened last night, I should feel great. Allen and I were finally on the same page. The sex had been good; not the greatest, it was backwards after all, but it was still good. I should feel happy and relaxed, not sick to my stomach.

Allen shook my shoulder again. "Lena, it's time to get up."

"Don't wanna." I mumbled into the pillow and tried to roll over.

He laughed at me and shook my shoulder again. "Why not?"

"Don't feel good."

My whiny answer just made Allen laugh more. "Oh? You don't feel good? Kinda like you swallowed an apple whole and it's just sitting in your stomach, weighing you down? Or is it your back that's bothering you? Like you spent all day bending over and lifting things? Oh I know, it's the heartburn. Feels like your throat's on fire, doesn't it?"

The mixture of care and sarcasm in his voice concerned me. But what bothered me most was that everything he said was true. I wanted to glare at him, but I couldn't make myself open my eyes. "How do you know that?"

"Lena. Wake up."

I moaned as he pulled me into a sitting position, my sore back screaming at the action. The pain forced me to finally look at Allen, wanting to take some of it out on him.

He was standing beside the bed, smiling brightly. His white hair was disheveled, and his shirt was unbuttoned, exposing his bare chest. He looked absolutely gorgeous.

It took a second for my brain to catch up with my eyes. When it did, I was wide-awake. I threw myself off the bed and into his arms, simultaneously laughing and crying as my own tangled green locks fell into my face. We were back in our own bodies.

Allen pulled my naked body closer and kissed me passionately. As the make out session progressed, we ended up back on the bed. But as he knelt over me, that awful feeling from when I awoke came back and I had to pull away. "Sorry. But I really don't feel well."

I expected Allen to be disappointed, but instead he snickered. "And you've got five more months of it to look forward to. At least you don't have to deal with the morning sickness anymore."

It wasn't until he moved lower and kissed my bare stomach that I caught what he meant. "Ugh. You mean it's the baby making me feel like this? You've got to be kidding."

"Nope." His silver eyes sparked as he smirked at me. "It'll fade once you get moving, so I suggest we celebrate being back in our own bodies..."

Half an hour later, we were dressed and heading down for breakfast. Allen was right; the physical activity did make me feel better.

.x.x.

The sound of giggling alerted everyone to Lenalee and Allen's arrival at the cafeteria. It was loud and infectiously happy; those who heard it couldn't help but be in a better mood. I was no exception. It felt good to hear her laugh; she hadn't laughed like that in months, ever since the body switching thing happened.

That blissful feeling faded the instant they walked through the doors. Lenalee was standing behind Allen, and she had her arms wrapped around him, with her hands in his front pockets. She was resting her chin on his shoulder and they were both grinning from ear to ear. It was a shocking display of affection for _me_ , and I was the one person who had seen them be affectionate. The rest of the cafeteria froze at the sight of them touching each other like that.

But ever since they revealed their relationship to me, I had been watching them like a hawk. I was _not_ going to miss any more obvious things happening right in front of me.

And that's how I noticed the thing that put me on edge: Lenalee wasn't the one giggling, _Allen_ was.

And that was really, really odd.

As I watched them, Allen twisted in Lenalee's grasp and stood on tiptoe to kiss her. She laughed as she shoved him away, pushing him towards my table as she headed to Jerry's window.

It was just plain wrong to see them do that while they were in the wrong bodies.

But something else was wrong. The sounds didn't match. It sounded like Allen was the one who laughed...

I put it together after that. It sounded like Allen laughed, but it also looked like Allen laughed. I had only assumed it was Lenalee because she'd been in his body for the last two months. That combined with the uncharacteristic public display of affection and the happiness that was flowing off them... They had switched back.

I grinned at Lenalee as she sat down across from me. "Hey Lena-lady. You look happy this morning. Enjoying being back in your own body?"

"You weren't supposed to figure it out so fast." She made a face at me, but it almost immediately melted back to a wide grin. "Of course I'm happy. I'm me again. Being stuck in Allen's body sucked."

"If you didn't want me to figure it out, you probably shouldn't have kissed him like that." I tried to be upset that they wanted to trick me again, but the way Lenalee was smiling made it hard. "And if 'sucked' is the best word you can come up with, you should have heard the way Allen talked about being stuck in your body."

I had been trying to see if Lenalee would get mad at Allen, but she just snorted at me. "I _did_ hear him. He complained almost constantly some days. I can't blame him for that though. The first thing I did when I woke up back in my own body was complain."

Before I could confirm that she was talking about her pregnancy, Allen joined us. He kissed the top of Lenalee's head before he sat beside her, and she immediately slid closer to him and wrapped her arms around his waist. They started kissing and didn't stop. It made me want to throw up. "Can you two not do that while people are eating?"

I was ignored. They continued to make out until their food arrived. Allen broke the kiss and turned his focus on his plates, practically shoveling things into his mouth. Lenalee laughed at him, and then smiled sheepishly at me. "Sorry."

"What was with that kiss? I thought you two said you don't like to do things like that where Komui might see you. I know you're happy to be back to normal, but that was like you hadn't seen each other in- _Oh_. Never mind. I get it now. It's been a couple months since you two were intimate, hasn't it?"

Lenalee laughed as she picked a plate out of the pile on the table. "We 'were intimate' this morning. But you're not wrong. We hadn't done anything for the couple months before that."

She picked up her fork, but before she could start eating, Allen pulled the plate away from her. I knew Allen was obsessed with food, but it was surprising that he would take something from someone else, especially when that someone was his pregnant fiancée. "Hey! I was going to eat that!"

He gave her a look as he set the plate down where she couldn't reach it. "Not without throwing up."

Her voice got really quiet. "But I thought you said the morning sickness was gone."

"It is." Allen laughed gently and kissed her forehead. "But there are still foods that you can't eat."

His next words were whispered and I didn't catch them, but whatever it was made Lenalee relax. She feigned annoyance. "So what _can_ I eat then?"

Allen smiled and placed a plate similar to the one Lenalee had originally picked in front of her. She and I both noticed that there was a distinct lack of bacon on this plate. "Aww, but I wanted the bacon..."

"No you don't." Allen smirked at her as he picked up a piece and held it in front of her.

She paled and covered her mouth the instant she could smell it. "Ok, you win. Get rid of it."

The bacon immediately disappeared into the black hole that was Allen's stomach.

We all laughed about it, and then they focused on eating. It gave me the chance to finally voice my curiosity. "So what happened? How'd you switch back?"

The pair shared a look before Allen shrugged. "Don't know. We just sort of woke up back in our own bodies."

It was a lie. They knew exactly what had made them switch back. But before I could pester them about it, my attention was drawn to something else. Something that was probably weirder than the past couple months with Allen and Lenalee had been.

General Cross had just walked into the cafeteria.

He was followed closely by Komui, and they were apparently looking for Allen and Lenalee as they walked straight to our table.

I was the only one who could see them, Allen and Lenalee were sitting with their backs to the cafeteria entrance, and seeing the perfect opportunity to freak out the bean sprout, I took it. "Good morning, General Cross. What brings you to headquarters?"

"Komui called me. He wants my help getting these two lovebirds back to normal."

Aside from stopping eating, Allen didn't react. It was disappointing, but it did tell me that Allen knew that the general was here. And other than giving Allen a look, Lenalee didn't react either. They must have already met with him. And it had to have been last night if he didn't know that they had already switched back.

Neither of them seemed interested in telling him that though. "It's a shame you came all this way for nothing."

Komui immediately latched himself onto his sister, sobbing and yelling psychotic nonsense. She laughed as she attempted to push him away, but she wasn't trying very hard.

Cross' attention was on Allen. He stared at his former apprentice, and the white haired teen stared back. It was obvious from the way Allen flinched occasionally that they were having some sort of nonverbal conversation.

Eventually Komui regained his senses and his serious side came back. "So how did it happen?"

"They won't tell me." I glared at them as I sighed. "They say they just woke up like that, but I know that's not the whole story."

Cross laughed, and I wasn't sure if it was at me or at them. "That's because they didn't want you to know that they had sex while they were switched."

"Master Cross!" Allen had turned bright red. "Why would you tell him that?!"

Cross just smirked devilishly at him. "Oh, so that really _is_ what happened. I was only guessing, but judging from your reaction it must be true."

"Can we _please_ not talk about this?" Lenalee was very pointedly looking anywhere but at her brother, who looked like he was about to have a heart attack. I couldn't blame him; if I was perturbed by the idea of them doing that, then he would be feeling so much worse. In fact, Cross was the only one who was enjoying this; Allen and Lenalee both looked like they were ready to die of embarrassment. "It doesn't matter how we switched back. All that's important is that we did. So can we forget about this and move on?"

"Of course, Miss Lee, but tell me something first: did you do what we discussed last night?" She nodded in response to his question, and he immediately bopped Allen on the head. The teen protested the rough treatment, but he was ignored.

Cross grinned maliciously at Komui. "They switched back once the idiot here finally got it through his thick skull that the girl really does love him. I can't tell you why it happened in the first place, but like she just said: they're back to normal now, so it doesn't matter. Call me sooner next time. It took me less than twenty-four hours to fix what you couldn't do in two months. My job here is done. Now if that's all you need from me, I'll take my leave now." He turned and began to walk away.

Allen looked at him in surprise. "You're not going to stay for the wedding?"

Cross stopped walking but didn't turn around. "...When is it?"

Allen and Lenalee looked at each other, but it was Komui who spoke. "Let's see... today's Tuesday... and we'll need a couple days to put it together... so, the ceremony will be on Friday."

"Then I'll be back on Friday."

.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.

A/N #2: Well, they're back in their own bodies, but they've still got no clue as to why the switch happened in the first place. But then again, the story's only two-thirds over. Stay tuned for wedding drama!


	11. Chapter 11

A/N: The reason this story has been updating so slowly is that I tend to get really stuck when I'm writing it (like as bad as my current writer's block with "Of Love and Vampires" is). So, rather than risk a situation like with that story where it's been on hiatus for six months, I've been posting the chapters of this story at a much slower pace so that I never have to put it on hiatus.

 _Anyway,_ that's all moot now as I finished writing the epilogue today. Woot! And of course that means that I'm going to change how often I post it. I'm giving you this chapter today, as that's what I promised. But after this week, this story will alternate posting with "A Second Neko". This means that Chapter 12 will be posted in three weeks (4/27), and after that, new chapters will come out every other week.

Now, I'm pretty sure that you're all excited for a wedding...

.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.

I stared at my brother in shock and horror as he unilaterally determined the date of my wedding. "Friday?! Nii-san! That's way too soon!"

My outburst was met with a stern glare. "Lenalee, you're already starting to show. We need to do this now, while Central is still ignorant of the pregnancy."

I squirmed slightly under his gaze and placed my hand on my baby bump. Nii-san had said things like that several times during my pregnancy, but this was the first time he said it where _I_ was the pregnant one, and it felt awful to have him so disappointed in me. "But that's nowhere near enough time to properly prepare a wedding! Can't it wait just a couple weeks?!"

Allen placed his right hand on top of mine and wrapped his other arm around my shoulders. "Lena, it's ok. It's all already been taken care of."

I blinked at him. "Huh?"

He smiled brightly at me. "You didn't think I just sat around doing nothing when I was here alone, did you? Your brother and I have been putting the wedding together for a while now. Whenever you would go out on a mission, we'd get together and work on it. We knew this was going to have to happen fast, so we've put a lot of work into making sure it would be ready."

I pulled Allen's hand off my belly and clasped it tight. "Look, Allen, that's really sweet of you, but it just makes things worse. You don't know what I want."

Lavi laughed at us. "She's right, buddy. You don't mess with a girl's wedding fantasy. She's probably been planning this since before you got engaged."

Allen snorted and threw a balled up napkin at him. "I know. I found the notebook."

It took a second for me to process what he said. "You read my notebook?!"

He smirked at me. "Of course I did. I wasn't going to prepare our wedding in secret without making absolutely sure I knew what you wanted first."

I narrowed my eyes at him. Despite the appreciation I felt for what he had done, I felt a little violated that my fiancé had gone through my private things. "So you went snooping through my stuff until you found something that would tell you what that was?"

"No! Of course not!" Allen's silver eyes were wide with horror as he denied it. "I found it on accident. I stumbled across it in the desk drawer when I was looking for a pencil."

It was an honest answer, but I was still a little pissed. "And you read it? What if that had been my diary?!"

Allen scowled at me. "Lena, it was very clearly labeled as your wedding notebook. I wouldn't have even touched it if I thought it might have been something else."

Lavi laughed, obviously enjoying our argument. "He's got you there, Lena-lady. The Bean Sprout would never so much as touch something he thought might be your diary, let alone read it."

"Don't call me that! My name is Allen!"

While Allen yelled at Lavi, Komui placed a hand on my shoulder. "See, it's all taken care of. You've got nothing to worry about."

I frowned at him. "I'll believe it when I see it."

.x.x.

The next forty-eight hours were a flurry of activity as Allen and I worked nonstop to get everything ready for our wedding. We were back to our usual selves before that first day was over; the body swap all but forgotten. It turned out that they were telling the truth, and I was, begrudgingly, impressed with what they had done. It wasn't perfect, but it was pretty close; closer than I thought possible given the circumstances.

My dress was the only real source of disappointment. Having lived in Europe for most of my life, I wanted some elements of my Chinese heritage in my wedding. The most important one was my dress: I wanted to wear a Chinese dress, in the traditional wedding colors of red embroidered in gold. But that couldn't happen. I was showing too much for the form-fitting Chinese style.

So instead I was stuck with a white, Western style gown. It was actually a nice dress; I was just upset because it wasn't my first choice. Allen had apparently also been meeting with Johnny to make sure that the dress did more than just fit right. It looked amazing on me and hid my bump flawlessly; even if our wedding didn't happen for another month, no one would be able to tell I was pregnant.

Thursday evening was hard. With the preparations finished, all that was left to do was wait until morning. I wanted to spend the time with my fiancé, since I had barely seen him since the morning we switched back to our own bodies. However, because everyone knew that we were back to normal and that we were getting married in the morning, we couldn't share a room that night.

Instead, Lavi dragged Allen away for what he called a 'stag night'. Apparently, it was a British custom that he thought Allen would appreciate. They were going to grab Kanda, get drunk, and celebrate Allen's last night as a single man. I wanted to go just to watch it fall apart; Allen wasn't going to let a drop of alcohol pass his lips, Kanda was going to be uncooperative, and Lavi was going to be overbearing and annoying. Then Allen and Kanda would have one of their usual fights, and it would end with one of the three storming off. I couldn't help calling after Lavi as they left. "Tell Kanda that if he hurts Allen in any way tonight then he's going to have to answer to me. I need my fiancé in top form tomorrow morning!"

The redhead waved to acknowledge that he heard me, and then they were gone. I sighed heavily and leaned back against my door. _Now what do I do?_

I was pulled from my thoughts by nervous giggling. Looking up, I spotted Miranda watching me and carrying a small bag. She smiled shyly at me. "Noise told me what the boys were planning. I thought you might like some company tonight."

I smiled gratefully at her. "That sounds great."

Her nervous smile stayed as I led the way into my room. "I was going to bring wine, but Noise told me that you don't drink alcohol, so I left it behind."

I panicked briefly at that. _Did he tell her that I'm pregnant?_ But Miranda just continued to babble. "I'm so excited for you! You and Allen were made for each other! It's going to be amazing having another married couple around. Though if you don't mind me asking, why are you having the wedding so soon after switching back? I would think you'd want to wait until you lose the weight your body gained while Allen was in it."

At least I now knew that Marie had kept his promise and didn't tell her about the baby; she clearly thought I was overweight like the rest of the Order did. It was very much like Miranda to say it like that too; she was incapable of blaming anyone for anything, especially if that person was Allen. Deciding that with the wedding in less than twelve hours it wouldn't hurt to tell her the truth, I smiled nervously at her. "Allen did this to me long before he got stuck in my body."

The German woman clearly didn't get what I was saying, and the subject dropped. She returned to babbling about how excited she was, and after a few minutes, I had forgotten that I'd tried to tell her. Until half an hour later, when Miranda suddenly bolted upright from where she was lounging and stared at me. She looked like she'd seen a ghost and that scared me. "Miranda? What's wrong?"

She spluttered momentarily before she finally found her voice. "You- You're- you're pregnant?!"

I gaped at her for a second before I recalled that I had tried to tell her. Then I sighed happily and placed my free hand on my bump. "Yeah. Almost eighteen weeks."

Miranda practically threw herself at me as she sobbed tears of joy. It took ten minutes to get her to calm down to the point where her words were understandable again, and another five before those words made sense.

The rest of the night was spent talking about baby things. Miranda wanted to know absolutely everything about my pregnancy. It was especially awkward since I didn't know the answers to some of her questions. And when I actually said, "I don't know, I'll have to ask Allen," out loud, that led to an even more awkward explanation as to why my fiancé knew my pregnancy better than I did.

Despite the awkwardness, it was still a pleasant evening. I hadn't yet talked about my pregnancy with another woman (aside from Hevlaska and the Head Nurse, but those were exams, so they don't count), and that was a nice change of pace.

.x.x.

Morning finally came and I woke early, much too early for getting ready. I went down to my brother's office, worrying about whether or not everything was perfect. In the middle of all that, there was a knock at the door. I let Komui answer it, not knowing or caring who was there, until I heard Allen's voice. "Is Lenalee here?"

"She is, but you can't see her. It's bad luck for the groom to see the bride before the wedding."

Allen stopped Komui from closing the door on him, holding it open with his Innocence hand. "That's only if she's already in her dress. And I've already seen it on her, as I was the one doing the fittings, so it's pointless to be superstitious about that now. Besides, I just want to make sure that she ate breakfast this morning, that's all."

Komui took one look at me, figured out that I had skipped breakfast, and pushed me out into the hall. It wasn't until he spoke to Allen that I realized that I had been bothering him. "Keep her busy for at least half an hour and then it'll be late enough that she can start getting dressed."

Allen grabbed my hand and pulled me to the cafeteria. He was smiling brightly, clearly excited for the wedding, whereas I was just nervous. He entertained me through breakfast with stories of their party the night before. I had been right about him not drinking, but I had been wrong about him and Kanda getting into a fight. Neither really wanted Lavi's idea of a party, so the two teamed up to get the redhead so plastered that he made a complete fool out of himself.

It was fun to listen to, and it made me wish I had actually been there to see it, but what I really wanted was to go make sure that everything was ready for our wedding. It _was_ distracting though, and before I knew it, Allen was deciding that enough time had passed, and that I had properly fed our child, and he was letting me go.

I spent the rest of the morning with my bridesmaids, Miranda and Emilia, doing my hair and makeup. They helped me to make sure that everything was absolutely perfect. Then I changed into my dress, and Emilia pinned my veil into my hair.

Then my brother came and escorted us down to the waiting room next to the chapel. All that was left to do was wait for the ceremony to start. It was only ten minutes but it felt so much longer than that. I could hear everyone gathering in the chapel next door, and that only added to my nerves.

Then there was a knock at the door, and Secretary Leverrier and five other men from Central walked into the room.


	12. Chapter 12

A/N: Evil cliffhanger, but it was too perfect to resist. Hope you weren't too traumatized by it. ;)

As I mentioned last chapter: from this point on, new chapters of this story will now be posted every other week.

.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.

I stared in horror at the men in the doorway. This was my wedding day, the happiest day of my life; I shouldn't have to see the man who tormented me throughout my childhood.

But even worse was that I didn't know why Central was here. Did they come to stop the wedding? The Fourteenth had been gone for a long time, but they still didn't like Allen; had they come to stop me from marrying him? Or had they found out about the baby? Were they here to make a scene before I could make my unborn child legitimate?

My brother moved so that he was standing between me and the men from Central. "Secretary Leverrier. We weren't expecting you. What brings you here today?"

Leverrier laughed in a way that made my skin crawl. "The marriage of two of the Order's exorcists is an auspicious occasion. We are merely here to observe the festivities and then we'll be on our way. Congratulations, Miss Lenalee."

He smiled creepily at me and then turned and left the room, the others following after him.

The second the door closed behind them, my knees gave out and I collapsed. Miranda was paying attention and caught me before I hit the ground, but that was a small comfort.

.x.x.

I was immensely thankful that Lenalee had put her foot down and refused to get married while we were switched. It was hard enough having to rush into this to cover up her pregnancy, doing it while _I_ was the pregnant one would have been a nightmare.

Getting ready that morning was an adventure, as Lavi, who was supposed to be my best man, was still drunk from the night before. Seriously, the redhead should have known better than to challenge me to a drinking game when I had no intention of drinking anything. But despite his drunken attempts to mess things up, and Kanda's multiple threats to skewer the rabbit, all three of us managed to be dressed and ready in time.

I could barely contain my excitement. In less than an hour, the prettiest girl I'd ever met was going to be my wife. Holding still through the ceremony was going to be one of the hardest things I ever had to do.

That excitement died when a knock at the door revealed Howard Link. The blond man was offering me a homemade pie, just like he had the day we first met. Seeing him sent a lump to my throat and a feeling of dread washed over me. I didn't doubt that he knew all along that Lenalee and I were together, and it would not have surprised me to learn that he already knew she was pregnant. "What are you doing here, Link?"

His smile faltered at my tone. He set the pie box on a nearby table with a small sigh. "I just wanted to say congratulations. I know you've been after this for a long time, Walker, and I'm glad to see you finally get it."

.x.x.

The chapel was beautifully decorated. Or maybe that's how it always looked. I'd never been in there before. Marie and Miranda had held their ceremony outside, so I had no idea what it usually looked like. I was only guessing that it was decorated, knowing that it was Lenalee's wedding that was about to happen. Over the past few days, that girl had been more psychotic than her brother usually was, and I doubted that she would have let the chapel go undecorated in that state.

Seriously, what was the Moyashi thinking, proposing to her? I was better off believing that they were only getting married because she was pregnant, not because they _wanted_ to. It was just way too disturbing this way. Getting the rabbit drunk as a skunk last night was just the start of my revenge on him for ruining that for me.

On the other hand, maybe if I had let Lavi get Allen plastered like he wanted, the Moyashi wouldn't have been so damn annoying all morning. If I didn't know better, I'd have thought that brat had had pure sugar for breakfast; he was acting like he was high as a kite. That was probably the only time in my life that I would be thankful to see Central; the Moyashi crashed down to his usual level of annoying once he knew they were here.

The ceremony passed uneventfully. I was forced to endure walking down the aisle with Emilia; Lenalee probably thought I was clueless and didn't know that the Frenchwoman had a crush on me. But beyond that, there wasn't anything of note. The priest's speech was boring, their vows were the traditional promises, and I spent the whole time wishing that I was somewhere else.

And Central did nothing but sit in their pew and watch. We all expected them to intervene, or make some kind of scene, but they didn't. Not even when the priest reached the "speak now or forever hold your peace" bit.

No one was particularly surprised that Komui remained silent at those words, as those who didn't know that Lenalee was pregnant thought he was forcing the marriage on them. It was some nonsense the idiots concocted in regards to the body swap and the supervisor's concerns about his sister's purity, and it would have made me laugh if I was the laughing type.

They kissed and exchanged rings. The bright smile on the Moyashi's face made me want to hurt him, but that would only turn Lenalee's wrath on me, so I repressed the urge to slap the brat.

And with that, it was finally over. We filed out of the chapel, but instead of disappearing like I had planned, the idiot rabbit dragged me to the dining hall for the reception.

I was not one for parties like that, but it was amusing watching everyone fawn over Allen and Lenalee like they were royalty or something. People could be so stupid sometimes.

.x.x.

It was in the middle of the reception when the men from Central finally left. They had been keeping to themselves, watching the festivities from the sidelines, and the whole thing was putting me on edge. Yet even though they were gone, I couldn't relax. It bothered me that they had kept their word and merely observed. It wasn't like them to have come and gone so quietly.

I was still stewing about it when it came time for my first dance with my husband. Allen looked perfect in his tuxedo and top hat, and even though it was traditional to wear gloves at a wedding, he had listened to me and gone barehanded, leaving his black Innocence hand out for everyone to see. He had protested at first, but I won that argument when I pointed out that the baby would also have a parasitic Innocence and I didn't want him passing that embarrassment on to our child.

The dance probably wasn't much to look at, we stayed in one spot and swayed from side to side, but it was heaven to me. I was finally Mrs. Allen Walker.

Allen spoke softly as we moved. "I know what you're thinking about. Central's gone now, you can forget about them."

I sighed. "No I can't. Until I find out why they were here, it's going to bother me."

He laughed lightly and squeezed my hand, his wedding band pressing into my skin. "You're confused because you thought they were here to make a scene. You thought they were going to try to stop the wedding."

I wanted to be suspicious of how well he was reading me, but he disliked Central as much as I did, and was probably thinking the same things I was.

His next words made me freeze, and if he weren't holding me tight enough to keep us moving, I might have ruined the dance. "They know about the baby."

The smile he gave me was reassuring, but it still felt like I couldn't breathe. "Relax, Lena. It's not like that. They figured out that we were getting married because you're pregnant, and they came to make sure nothing stopped it. They didn't want our child to be illegitimate any more than we did."

I frowned at him. What he was saying seemed too good to be true. "Don't make stuff up for me. I am your wife now; I won't tolerate you lying to me."

Allen's smile never faltered, though I swore that it got brighter when I called myself his wife. "I'm not lying, Lena. I spoke to Link before the wedding, and he told me everything. Apparently they figured it out because your brother wasn't acting crazy enough about you getting married."

I snorted in exasperation. "Figures. I was so thankful that he wasn't up to anything psychotic that I didn't anticipate the consequences of him actually behaving."

I relaxed into my husband's arms, and we finished the dance in silence. It was relieving to have Central's approval, even if it was only for today.

After my dance with Allen was what traditionally would have been the father-daughter dance. But I didn't have a father and Allen didn't have a mother, so it was just my dance with Komui. I had suggested several people for Allen to dance with, but he didn't like any of my ideas; they weren't "special" enough for a dance that was supposed to be with his mother. Half-expecting him to sit the dance out, it was a surprise to me when he led a very embarrassed Miranda out onto the floor.

.x.x.

As the reception progressed, one group of finders began getting particularly rowdy. They decided they needed to make the wedding celebrations more interesting, and started a betting pool. They went around asking those they came across to place money on how long it would take for the newlyweds to conceive their first child.

It caught everyone's attention, and soon all the guests were chatting about it. While most agreed that it wasn't a smart idea for two exorcists to have a baby, the thought of how adorable any child of Allen and Lenalee's would be trumped that, and they all began plotting ways to make sure the couple got pregnant in the timeframe that would make them win the pool.

General Cross was the first to hear the chatter, and he tried to shut the betting down before it reached the newlyweds. The redhead knew from experience exactly what Allen's black side would do if the kid learned people were betting on him, and he did not want to see that happen again. Ok, maybe he did. But not at a wedding. That would just be tasteless.

Cross' friendly request that the finders stop the pool and return the money they'd collected was met with resistance. They didn't want to end their fun just because the General said so. But the redhead's attempts to make them listen to him just made things worse. The commotion attracted the hungover Lavi's attention, and he tried to intervene.

No one was really sure which of the two redheads let it slip, but the argument came to a standstill when it was revealed that Lenalee was already pregnant.

Those nearest the argument overheard the news, and it spread through the room in a matter of seconds. Everyone fell silent as they watched the newlyweds dance, looking for signs that the rumor was true.

The signs were subtle, but they were there. The cut of Lenalee's dress was obviously designed to mask a baby bump. Allen's hand was placed on her waist rather than her hip or lower back, more concerned with feeling their baby than with feeling up his wife. Even the conservative nature of their dancing was proof. When the pair had danced at Miranda and Marie's wedding, there had been lots of spinning and dipping involved.

It wasn't until the couple finished their dance that they realized everyone was watching them, and not in the same way they were at the beginning of the reception. And they knew without having to ask that the news about the baby had gotten out. Forcing a smile, Lenalee faked cluelessness. "What's going on, everybody?"

The slight chatter stopped at her words. Then several things happened at once. The argument that started it all started back up, with Cross, Lavi, and the finders all blaming each other for the news getting out. Komui and the others who already knew about the baby all shared confused looks and began arguing over which of them should tell Lenalee that everyone knew. And General Teidoll, who had been out on a mission and had returned just in time to hear the rumor, spoke out over the hubbub. "Is it true? Are you truly with child?"

Lenalee let out a small sigh, and Allen wrapped his arms around her waist in a gesture of support. The Chinese woman smiled brightly at the frizzy haired artist, who was making his way towards the dance floor. "It's true. I'm about eighteen weeks along. The youngest member of our exorcist family should be joining us in June."

Teidoll reached them then and wrapped them both in a big bear hug. A call for a toast went out, and everyone began congratulating the newlyweds on their pregnancy. The atmosphere returned to light and festive, and the party picked up speed again.

Until about an hour later, when someone recalled that Allen and Lenalee had spent the last two months in the other's body. But instead of stopping the celebrations like the news of her pregnancy had, this rumor kicked the party up a notch.

Allen and Lenalee shared a look and a sigh. Neither understood why the others were laughing so hard at the idea of Allen being pregnant. "Why does everyone think that's funny?"


	13. Chapter 13

A/N: This is a bit of a filler chapter, just some fluff before the baby arrives and the story gets serious again. Hopefully you find it as cute as I did. ;)

.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.

The remainder of our wedding day passed quickly, and before I knew it, I was lying in bed with my new husband. We were in our new room, in the wing reserved for generals and married couples, and from my position on the bed, I could see into the unfurnished bedroom that would soon be the nursery for our unborn child. The chaos of our wedding was over and we finally had the chance to relax.

Allen pulled me against his chest and wrapped his arms around my stomach, his left hand caressing my baby bump. It felt so good to cuddle with him. We hadn't had the time in the last couple days because of the wedding, and before that we were in the wrong bodies and touching each other was just too hard. Not only that, but Allen was my husband now, and there was no longer anything my psychotic brother could do to break us apart.

I almost laughed when I felt Allen tense behind me; I could tell that he was about to ask me something that made him nervous. "So? How was it? Did it live up to your fantasy?"

I smiled at the question. Allen was too sweet for his own good; so many things had happened that day, and it was the quality of the wedding that had him worried. "They're not really comparable. The circumstances are too different. In my fantasy, you get me pregnant on our wedding night, not we get married because I'm pregnant."

The hand caressing my stomach froze at the reminder that things happened out of the traditional order. I'm certain Allen was thinking that he would have tried harder to prevent this accidental pregnancy if he had known that I wanted to get pregnant on my wedding night. I pulled his hand off my stomach and began fiddling with his wedding band. The ring wasn't much to look at, just a simple strip of silver, but what it stood for made it gorgeous. "But to answer your question: you did great with the wedding preparations. It wasn't perfect, but it was close enough. I mean, I would have preferred it if Central hadn't shown up, or if the baby had stayed a secret, but neither of those things were things you could have controlled."

He laughed lightly at my attempt to make him feel better, and we fell silent again. I just lay there, listening to his heart beat and enjoying the feeling of his strong chest against my back. But there was something that I needed to get off my chest. "In the spirit of what happened the other night..."

I didn't know how to word the rest of the sentence, but Allen finished it for me. "The night we switched back to our own bodies?"

"Yeah. ... Well, if we're going to be totally honest about our feelings, then there's something you should know." Allen and I had decided that night that despite how embarrassing it may be, we would always be honest with each other about our feelings. It was mostly so that he would come to me if he started struggling with his self-worth again, but this was something I needed to tell him. "That notebook you found? Lavi was wrong about when I started it... I didn't start it back when we were dating; I started it the day I met you. I've known from the very beginning that I wanted to marry you."

The words were met with stunned silence, but it didn't last as long as I expected. Allen started laughing after just a few seconds. "Well if that's how you're going to play this, then you should know: finding that notebook was what inspired me to propose to you."

I laughed and kicked him playfully in the shin. "You're making that up."

He fake-whined at the kick before he laughed and kissed the top of my head. "I am. I didn't find it until after we got engaged. But how else was I supposed to respond to that? It's creepy to think that you started planning our wedding before you even knew if I liked you."

Before I could respond, he tightened his hold on me. "And don't give me any bull about women's intuition, Lena. We both know that's nonsense. Now, you were hopefully leading into something with that comment, care to tell me what it is?"

How was it that Allen could be so dense at times, yet at others he could see right through me? And then there were the times like this, where he was somehow both perceptive and clueless at the same time. I laughed and kicked his shin again. "It's our wedding night, Allen. If you can't figure that out on your own, our marriage might be in trouble."

Allen lay frozen for a moment, but then he sprang into action. He did exactly what I wanted him to do and kissed me while his fingers nimbly worked their way down the buttons of my gown.

I giggled like a schoolgirl as Allen kissed the back of my neck. We'd had sex so many times before, but this was different. We were husband and wife now, and that thought alone was almost enough to push me over the edge. I was finally getting to have sex with Allen as my husband.

.x.x.

Being married to Lenalee was everything I imagined it would be. We had our issues, but after the whole body switching thing, those issues were nothing we couldn't work out, giving us plenty of time to focus on getting ready for our baby's arrival.

Of course, preparing for a baby was hard when we were being summoned to Komui's lab every other day. Unlike the two of us, and everyone else for that matter, it wasn't enough for the Supervisor that Lenalee and I were back in our correct bodies. He was not going to let the body swap thing go until he knew why it had happened and whether or not it was possible for it to happen again.

It was annoying, but we put up with it. After all, Komui's obsession with doing tests on us had made him mess with my mission schedule, so while I was technically on active duty, I was never away from my wife and unborn child for more than twenty four hours at a time.

My first mission after our stay at home honeymoon was an emotional nightmare. The mission itself was unremarkable, just a routine akuma hunt, but I was dealing with a lot of personal issues. On the one hand, I had been at headquarters for two months, and I was excited and relieved to no longer be stuck within those lifeless stone walls. But on the other hand, I was leaving my new bride behind, to deal with our unborn child all by herself. And on top of that guilt, I was worried about the same thing that I knew was making her worry: I was out risking my life for the war.

And then, as we were heading home from the mission, it occurred to me that this was my life from now until I died. Because after the baby was born, not only would I have to worry about Lenalee on her missions, but I would be worrying about our child as well. Our child the future exorcist. As a father, I was going to live in near constant fear and worry.

I didn't regret any of it though. I knew that I would be just as worried over my wife and child if they weren't exorcists, so this was just something that I had to accept as being an inevitable part of parenthood. All I could to do was make sure that I returned home from my missions alive, and trust Lenalee to do the same.

.x.x.

Once everyone knew about my pregnancy, they began asking all sorts of questions about it. Most were the normal, expected questions, but there were some that were completely inappropriate. It weirded me out that some of the finders wanted to know if the baby was conceived while Allen and I were swapped. And it was apparently also perfectly acceptable to ask a pregnant woman questions about her breasts and the other intimate parts of her body, though those kinds of questions stopped after the first time Allen heard them. That, of course, led to everyone comparing my husband to my brother and teasing me about how I either attracted crazy men or turned men crazy.

The whole thing was incredibly annoying, but ironically, it was one of the innocuous questions that caused the most issues: "Boy or girl?"

My answer was easy and immediate: I wanted my baby to be a boy. And I knew it was cheesy, but I wanted him to be just like his father, white hair and all, though with my violet eyes. After all, I now knew that Allen's silver eye color came from his curse, and I did not want our child to have to deal with that; it was hard enough just knowing that the baby would have a parasitic Innocence.

Allen brushed the question off with, "As long as the baby's healthy, it doesn't matter to me what gender it is." And while that was a sweet answer, I really wanted to know what he actually thought.

I pestered him about it, but his answer never changed. It took several weeks, but I finally got an explanation out of him, and it was definitely not what I expected it to be.

It happened while we were lying in bed one night, brainstorming baby names. "How about Liam?"

Allen laughed as he kissed my shoulder. "Lena, that's like the hundredth boy's name you've suggested. How about we try to come up with some girl's names?"

I frowned at the suggestion; I knew he was right from a logical standpoint, but the pregnancy hormones raging through my body were telling me to fight him on this. "But I want a boy; all I can think of are boy's names."

"And all you're doing is setting yourself up for disappointment. We're having a girl. We should think of names for her."

I rolled over and narrowed my eyes at him. "What do you mean 'we're having a girl'? You do know that we can't actually know the gender until the baby's born, right?"

"I know." He sighed as he lay back and stared at the ceiling. The hand that was rubbing my belly was now fisted in his hair and his face was scrunched up in thought. It was an adorable expression. "But I'm also positive that our baby is a girl. I really don't know how to explain it; I just know that we're going to have a daughter."

I looked him up and down for a moment, wondering what on earth was going through his head. "I'm going to need more of an explanation than that."

Allen sighed yet again. "Fine, but it's embarrassing, so you have to promise not to tease me first."

He looked so distraught, but I couldn't resist laughing at him. "You know that's not going to happen."

When he didn't respond, I reached over and brushed a lock of hair out of his face. "You also know that you can trust me with anything. So stop being a pain, and just tell me already."

"I spent two months in your body. That means that I spent two months pregnant with our child." He paused, clearly expecting me to argue with him, but I knew he was right. "I don't want to call it a gut feeling, it's so much stronger than that, but I've known from the second you told me that you were pregnant that the baby's a girl. I could feel it deep down inside, and even though we've switched back, that feeling hasn't faded."

I raised an eyebrow at him. His explanation was just plain weird; I had had no such feelings about our baby's gender and I was its mother. "Allen, if you want a girl, just say so. There's no need to try to convince me that that's what we're actually having."

He buried his face in his hands. "That's not what I'm doing, Lena. I would much rather have a boy, I know how to deal with boys, but that doesn't matter because we're having a girl."

I didn't know what to say to that, so I let it drop and brought the conversation back to the original subject. "Alright then, what are your thoughts on baby names?"

As the remaining months of my pregnancy passed, the subject of our baby's gender came up quite a few more times, but Allen's story never changed. He remained adamant that the baby was a girl. It worried me, but when I talked to my brother about it, Komui explained that some expectant mothers actually can sense their baby's gender and it was entirely possible that Allen was telling the truth about feeling like he knew that we were having a girl.

.x.x.

I was taken off missions again when Lenalee entered the final month of her pregnancy. She wanted me around in case something happened, and her brother willingly caved to her demands. It should have been nice getting to spend that time with my wife before our baby arrived, but between Lenalee's mood swings, which were out in full force now that all the drama leading up to our wedding was over, and Komui being his usual sister-complex self, it was not exactly a pleasant time.

My brother-in-law was trying to keep his promise and leave me alone, but Lenalee's pregnancy was making her miserable, and he did not like that. More than once, I had to protest rough treatment during one of his tests.

Despite how miserable she was, Lenalee was great. She knew that I was doing absolutely everything I could to help her; she was the one constantly reminding Komui that I had been pregnant during the morning sickness, which she deemed "the hard part", and getting him to let up on me. It only made me want to help her more.

So when she woke me in the middle of the night that night, I was expecting her to ask me for a back massage or to go fetch a plate of her latest pregnancy craving, which I was more than willing to do. I was certainly _not_ expecting her to say, "My water just broke. The baby's coming."


	14. Chapter 14

A/N: Time to meet the baby!

.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.

Nii-san was a complete wreck during my labor. He kept interfering and was escorted away by the nurses so many times that I ended up banning him from the room. Allen was thankfully much more composed. He sat dutifully beside me, holding my hand and giving me comfort and encouragement. He refused to leave my side, which was really sweet of him, but my labor lasted so long that his rumbling stomach got too obnoxious to put up with, and I had to threaten to kick him out like my brother if he didn't go have a proper meal.

When it was almost time for me to start pushing, the nurses also tried to kick Allen out, saying that men shouldn't be in the room where a baby was being born. He refused to leave. He had carried our child for two months and he was not going to miss its birth. It was simultaneously touching and annoying, but I think he came to regret staying as I spent the rest of my labor cussing him out and telling him that he would never touch me again.

After eighteen hours of labor - eighteen horrible, awful, pain-filled hours - our daughter, Madelynn Walker, was born. All that pain and suffering was forgotten the moment I heard my baby's first cries. The sound was so beautiful that it moved me to tears. While I was admittedly disappointed to not get the son I wanted, having a little girl was just as perfect. That impossible thing that I had wanted for so long was finally mine. I had a child. I was a mother.

The joy of holding my baby for the first time unfortunately faded much too quickly. It was instead replaced with anxiety as I took in the sight of her.

Madelynn had been cleaned up and loosely wrapped in a blanket, leaving her legs, and therefore her parasitic Innocence, completely exposed. The disfigured red flesh stretched from the middle of her calf all the way down to her tiny little toes. On _both_ of her legs. There was even an Innocence fragment embedded in each of her ankles, roughly where my own Innocence scars were. On closer inspection, the crosses in her ankles were actually just sideways t's and they only formed a full cross when her ankles were side by side. Madelynn's Innocence had somehow split into two pieces, with half of it in each of her ankles.

I hadn't said a word, but Allen seemed to know exactly what I was focusing on. He sat beside me on the bed and wrapped his arms around my shoulders. I could feel his distress in the embrace, and it was somehow comforting to know that he was as freaked out as I was. He reached out with his left hand and gently stroked one of our daughter's Innocence crosses with the fingers of his own Innocence. "I'm sorry, Maddie."

Almost as if she was reacting to his apology, Madelynn blinked open her eyes for the very first time. They were a bright, clear silver that was a perfect match for Allen's. The color coordinated perfectly with the wisps of dark hair on her head, which were the same shade of purple as my brother's. It was beautiful.

Allen's breath hitched at the sight, but it wasn't until he buried his face in my neck and a few stray drops hit my skin that I realized what he was thinking. He wasn't crying because of how beautiful our baby was, but because of what her eye color meant.

I managed to free one of my hands without dropping Madelynn and tugged sharply on his hair. "Knock that off this instant. I will not tolerate you crying over this."

He let out a noise that was a cross between a sniffle and a laugh before looking up at me with his own beautiful silver eyes. "Lena, I-"

The look he was giving me was very familiar, so I cut him off before he could say the words I didn't want him to say. "No. No apologizing. You had no way of knowing you could pass your curse on to our child. And we don't even know that's what actually happened. For all we know, all she got was the color. So save your apologies until she sees her first akuma, because that's when we'll know whether or not she actually got the curse part of it. And even then, it will be _her_ that you'll have to apologize to, not me. Got it?"

It briefly looked like Allen was going to argue with me, but after eighteen hours of childbirth, I was going to kick his ass if he tried, and he clearly realized that. He sighed in resignation and leaned his head back against my shoulder. "Got it."

I sighed wistfully and rubbed my thumb along Madelynn's ankle. It was bad enough that she had a parasitic Innocence, the possibility that she also had inherited Allen's curse was beyond scary. It reminded me of something Kanda had said to me a few months ago. Now was as good a time as any to knock some sense into Allen.

I shifted carefully and handed the baby over to her father. The way his silver eyes misted up as he wrapped his arms around her was precious. I placed a hand on his scarred cheek and stared seriously at him when he looked up at me. "If Madelynn did inherit your curse, you better be around to help her. She's going to need you to explain to her what she's seeing and why she's seeing it. I will not tolerate you needlessly risking your life on missions any longer. You have people to return to, and we're counting on you to come back to us. Understand?"

He smiled as he leaned in and kissed me. "Don't worry, Lena. I have no intention of leaving either of you behind. Besides, I'd have both your brothers to deal with if that happened, and I wouldn't put it past Komui to figure out some way to bring me back from the dead just so they could kill me again."

I raised an eyebrow at him in confusion. I knew he was making a joke, but I didn't get it; I only had one brother. "Both?"

Allen laughed and made a face. "Ever since he learned about the baby, Kanda has been threatening to kill me if I ever hurt you. It's seriously scarier than anything Komui's ever done."

.x.x.

Lenalee fell asleep not long after threatening me, but that was completely understandable, she had been awake for a long time. She truly was the most amazing woman I had ever met. If Maddie turned out to be half as spectacular as her mother, my daughter was going to be a wonderful person.

I was under strict orders to not let the others meet Maddie until Lenalee was awake, and I was not about to go against her on that. My wife was a force to be reckoned with, and I had learned early on not to piss her off. Besides, with Lena asleep and the others not allowed in, I had Maddie all to myself and that was an opportunity I wasn't about to pass up.

As I held my little girl, I babbled my thoughts aloud. I wondered how much of the last nine months she was aware of. Did she know that I had carried her during those two months I was stuck in Lenalee's body? Did she even know that I was her father? But then my thoughts drifted to her Innocence, which led to me wondering about my own parents, and that was depressing so I forced myself to think of something else.

When Lenalee had woken up and Maddie was fed, our friends nearly knocked down the door in their hurry to meet the baby. The next two hours were complete chaos. Lenalee refused to let anyone touch Maddie unless they washed their hands first. Lavi was the first to comply, but he lost his baby holding privileges when he sneezed on her. Miranda broke out in hysterics when it was her turn to hold the baby, and no matter what anyone said to the contrary, she refused to touch Maddie for fear of hurting her. Kanda repeatedly growled at me to stop smiling like an idiot or he'd break my face. Komui wailed over Lenalee, but he stopped immediately when she told him that if he didn't let go of his sister-complex then she'd reverse her decision to name him Maddie's godfather.

But I think the best part was when it was Master Cross' turn to hold Maddie. General Teidoll had called him 'Grandpa' when he handed Maddie over, but instead of getting angry at being called old, Cross seemed to enjoy the name. To my surprise, he then actually asked if I was ok with him being my daughter's grandfather. I didn't know what to say to him after that, especially after my hesitant nod was responded to with a real hug. He expressed his feelings so rarely that it was mind blowing to hear that Master Cross cared about me.

.x.x.

When Madelynn was three weeks old, Allen and I decided that it was time to take her to see Hevlaska, both for introductions and the first examination of her Innocence. ... There was also a small issue in that we hadn't been down to see her since we switched back to our own bodies. We probably should have gone the day we switched back, to make sure the switching hadn't had any adverse effects on our Innocence, but it got forgotten in the chaos of our impromptu wedding. That and neither of us had actually wanted to go. I didn't want to hear Hevlaska talk more about the baby's Innocence, and Allen, well, Allen just plain didn't like being examined.

Hevlaska greeted us warmly when we walked into her chamber. "It's been a while, Mr. and Mrs. Walker. Congratulations on your wedding."

I blushed at the name; I'd been married to Allen for almost six months and it still made my heart race to be referred to like that. There was also a bit of embarrassment at not having told Hevlaska of my wedding myself. Allen smiled brightly. "Thanks, Hevlaska."

Her smile suddenly faltered. "I have a confession to make."

The unexpected words made me freeze. I shared a look with Allen before I turned back to her. "What are you talking about?"

She sighed and bowed her head. "I told you a few months ago that there was nothing I could tell you about your body switching problem. ... That was not the truth."

My stomach dropped and I tightened my hold on Madelynn. The implications behind that revelation were harsh. "You mean our Innocence actually had something to do with that?"

Hevlaska nodded and sighed. "I told you last time that your two Innocence fragments made your baby's fragment. And while that is true, I left out several important details."

Allen and I shared another nervous look. He swallowed hard before he spoke. "Like what?"

"Because of the accidental nature of the pregnancy, your Innocence was in a rush to form the new fragment, and they weren't able to complete it at the time of conception. With nine months of pregnancy to go, there would be plenty of time for the Dark Boots to influence the remainder of the creation, but this was not the case for Crowned Clown. The new fragment would most likely need more attention than it would get through simple passing contact, so your Innocence made you swap bodies so that Crowned Clown could influence the baby's Innocence more directly."

I was stunned. I never would have thought that the creation of Madelynn's Innocence would be the reason for the body switching. But before I could react, Hevlaska continued talking.

"There was also the fact that you two weren't married at the time. There was no way to predict how Allen was going to react to the pregnancy, and if he walked out, the new Innocence fragment would not get finished and both Lenalee and the child would die. It was a risk they couldn't take."

I blinked at Hevlaska, trying to wrap my head around everything she'd told us. It was understandable, I myself had been worried that Allen would leave me over my pregnancy, but it seemed strange that Crowned Clown wouldn't have known what Allen's reaction would be. "So we switched back when Madelynn's Innocence was finished? It wasn't because...?"

Allen blushed deeply at my unfinished question. He knew that the words I hadn't said were referring to his self-worth issues. Hevlaska smiled gently, she also seemed to know what I had left unsaid. "No, her Innocence was complete after just a couple days. You are correct in thinking that there was more to it than that. It wasn't their original intention, but because you were already switched, your Innocence decided to leave you that way until you worked through some of the problems you had."

That embarrassed blush on Allen's face only got stronger, and I could tell that he was blaming himself for what had happened. I nudged him gently with my elbow, and when he looked up at me, I gave him a look that told him to knock it off. I knew that this was not his fault, but Hevlaska spoke before I could actually say that out loud. "I'm sorry I didn't tell you. Your Innocence asked me to keep it to myself until after you switched back and the baby was born."

The silence after her apology was awkward. I couldn't decide if I wished she'd told us anyway or if I truly was better off not knowing. One glance at Allen and it was clear that he felt the same way. As the silence grew even more uncomfortable, Hevlaska suddenly spoke again. "I see you've brought the baby with you. I take it you're here for an examination?"

Thankful for the subject change, I smiled up at her. "Yeah. We know she won't have a synchronization rate until she learns to activate her weapon, but we'd like to make sure everything's ok."

I stepped closer and let Hevlaska take Madelynn from me, but I wanted to take her back when she started wailing the second the exam started. It hurt so bad to hear my child cry like that. Allen wrapped his arms around my waist and pulled me into a hug from behind. He was smirking and that made me want to elbow him away. "See? It's not just me. Maddie doesn't like it either."

The few seconds of the exam felt like hours, but Madelynn was quickly returned to me, and her cries stopped once she was securely in my arms. Hevlaska smiled apologetically down at the baby. "Sorry, little one. I didn't mean to scare you." Turning her attention from the baby, she looked at me and Allen. "As you said, Lenalee, until her Innocence is active, there's not much that I can detect from it. What I can tell you is that everything's fine. Her Innocence is not interfering with her development in any way."

I sighed in relief and Allen held me closer, but the question he asked Hevlaska made my heart stop. "Should we be concerned over the fact that her Innocence is in two pieces?"

She smiled reassuringly at us. "There's no need to worry. It's perfectly normal for Innocence to split like that once it binds with its host. You know that better than anyone, right, Lenalee?"

I frowned at Hevlaska's smirk, suddenly very aware of the bands around my ankles. Of course it made sense that Madelynn's Innocence was in two pieces, mine was too. I briefly wondered if that meant that her Innocence would also take the form of boots, but I pushed the thought aside when Madelynn started getting fussy.

Smiling at Hevlaska, I thanked her for her help before excusing myself to go feed my baby. Allen was at my heels as I walked away, and I couldn't help laughing at how he obviously wanted to get out of there as soon as possible.


	15. Chapter 15 - Epilogue

A/N: Ok, here it is: the final chapter/epilogue. I can't believe it's finally finished. And almost exactly a year after I posted the first chapter. I hope you've enjoyed it!

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~Epilogue~

I paced the entry hall, anxiously waiting for the ark gate to light up and for my husband and daughter to step through. They were due back any minute and I wanted to be the first person they saw.

It was Madelynn's first mission as an exorcist. She had activated her Innocence six months ago, and it was time for her to go out and fight. I wanted to stop it, to keep her at home a little longer, but I knew in my heart that that would have only delayed the inevitable. At least she was nine; she was several years older than I was when I was in her position. And she was out with her father. Allen was not going to let anything happen to her. He was, after all, a general now, having been promoted just a couple months after Madelynn was born. My brother had even officially assigned Madelynn as his apprentice, so she would never be out without him.

I knew she was okay. I had spoken to Allen on the phone after they'd completed their mission, and he reported that she did spectacularly. But that didn't stop me from worrying. I wouldn't be able to relax until she was safely in my sights once again.

A small voice from behind me stopped my pacing in a heartbeat. "Mama, sit down. You're making me dizzy."

"Sorry, Daniel." I smiled down at the seven year old boy pouting at me and ruffled his white hair. "I'm just worried about your sister."

He huffed and made a face as he smoothed out his hair. "I _know_! You've been saying that for _three_ _days_! She's with Daddy, she's fine!"

I mimicked the face he was making at me and sat down on the bench beside him. "I'm worried about _him_ too."

Daniel just clicked his tongue and returned his attention to his book. I filed away a reminder to have a little chat with Kanda for teaching my son that noise; he was supposed to be teaching Daniel to use his Innocence sword, not passing on his anti-social behaviors.

That wasn't my priority at the moment though, so my focus drifted back to the ark gate. It seemed like forever with the butterflies fluttering in my stomach, but it was only a few minutes before the gate opened and Allen and Madelynn stepped into the room.

Madelynn was wearing her long purple hair in a braid down her back; it was her favorite hairstyle as it was the one her father was best at. It was probably my imagination, but it looked like she was taller now than when she left, though that could also have been from the way she now carried herself. She was very proud to finally have her own exorcist jacket, and she was clearly even prouder to have returned successfully from her first mission. Her short frilly skirt looked absolutely adorable on her, and I was glad to see that she was finally over her embarrassment towards its lack of length. Her Innocence did take the form of boots after all, and the shortness was necessary for her to be able to fight properly.

Allen was his usual thin self, though his smile had grown a lot more genuine over the past several years. Marriage and children had done him a lot of good. He was even more wonderful now than he was back when we first met. He may have only been gone for a few days, but seeing him standing there like that reminded me just how much I had missed him.

Daniel beat me to them, dropping his book to the floor and knocking Allen over with the force of his hug. I laughed at the sight of my boys together, but Madelynn claimed my attention when she wrapped her arms around my waist and buried her face in my jacket. "Welcome home, Mad-"

I was interrupted when she started sobbing. I repeatedly pet the top of her head, trying to soothe her, but her tears never stopped. Allen approached with Daniel on his back and kissed my forehead. His sweet smile immediately melted into a frown. "She had a rough time. That thing we were worried about happened."

My heart clenched as I pulled Madelynn closer to me. Tears welled in my eyes at the thought of my baby seeing the souls of the akuma she had come across, but I blinked them away; me crying would not help my little girl recover from what she'd seen. Allen kissed me again. "Don't worry about it. Maddie's fine. We had a long talk that first day and she understands what happened. She's just upset because I told her that I was abandoned because of my Innocence, and that didn't sit well with her." His smile turned sheepish as he blushed. "It took quite a while to convince her that you really would be here waiting for us when we got back."

I almost, almost laughed at that. Allen had once believed that I was only with him out of convenience, and now here was our daughter, so enraptured with him that learning he was abandoned as a baby made her doubt me instead of him.

Bending down, I kissed the top of Madelynn's head. Her sobs had faded to silent tears with the occasional sniffle. I held her closer and whispered in her ear. "Hush, baby. I'm right here. I'm not going anywhere."

As focused as I was on my daughter, it did not escape my notice that Daniel's violet eyes grew wide and filled with tears. I flicked Allen's ear in annoyance. "Now look what you started."

I reached past him and tousled Daniel's hair, earning a scowl from him. "Don't cry, buddy."

He immediately made a face at me. "I'm not crying."

Allen laughed and bounced the boy on his back. "Of course you're not."

Daniel frowned at his father. Guessing that he was trying to remember some insulting thing Kanda had undoubtedly said about Allen, I quickly changed the subject.

I leaned in and gave Allen a big welcome home kiss, smirking internally at the way Daniel gagged at the sight; he was definitely in a 'girls are gross' phase. "You're back just in time. Jerry's cooked up quite a feast in honor of our anniversary."

A lot had happened in the last decade, but some things never changed. At the mention of food, Allen's stomach growled loudly. The echo was new, as the other bottomless pit in my family had only recently activated her Innocence, but the sound still made me smile. It made Madelynn smile too, which was quite a relief as it meant that she had finally stopped crying. "Did you say 'feast'? There's a party?"

I laughed at the almost comical way in which she brightened at the mere mention of food. "Of course there is! We have to celebrate your first mission, right?"

Madelynn immediately squealed in delight and ran out of the room, prompting Daniel to demand to be put down so that he could chase after her. Allen and I laughed as we followed behind our children at a much slower pace.

He wrapped his arm around my waist and pulled me close to him as we walked. "Can you believe it's been ten years already? It still seems like just yesterday that you were telling me you were pregnant."

I shuddered at the rather uncomfortable memory of watching Allen throw up while he was in my body. He laughed at my reaction, clearly thinking about the same thing I was, and pulled me closer. "At least the body swapping was a one-time thing. I don't know if I could have handled it if I'd had to go through that all over again while you were pregnant with Daniel."

I didn't blame him for that sentiment, I was also glad that that hadn't happened again. It was while I was pregnant with Daniel that the true origin of Madelynn's Innocence came out, and I can only imagine how awful things would have turned out if we would have been swapped when that happened.

At the time, I wished that Allen was there to support me through Central's investigation, but it ended up being good that he was away on a mission. I felt horribly alone through the whole ordeal, especially when it was revealed that the child I was currently carrying also possessed a newly created fragment. That meant that Madelynn's wasn't a fluke, which meant that Central's decision on the matter was exactly what I feared the most from them. Sure, they worded in a way that sounded nice, but I knew what they were really saying: I was no longer going to be an exorcist; instead, I would spend the rest of my life making babies.

It was later that same day that Allen returned home from his mission. Injured. His whole team of finders was wiped out, and Haley, the exorcist with him, was next to dead. They'd gotten the Noah though, so it was not an unsuccessful mission. Ironically, Allen's wounds actually solved my problems. Central was beyond furious when they were told that he would never be able to get me pregnant again.

I always wondered if my brother had something to do with Allen's 'injury'. After all, the timing was more than a little suspicious and his dick continued to work like normal. I wouldn't have put it past Komui to intentionally make my husband sterile, but in this situation, that was actually a good thing, so I didn't press the issue. Not being able to have more children was infinitely preferable to being forced to be pregnant for the rest of my life.

Besides, if I weren't an exorcist anymore, I wouldn't have gotten to take out that brat Noah who stole Allen's first kiss. While the look on Road's face when she learned that Allen and I were married was priceless, her reaction to learning that we had kids was terrifying. I won't lie: I enjoyed finishing her off. Not only was I protecting my family from a Noah, I was getting rid of the one who had a creepy obsession with my husband.

I was pulled from my memories by a kiss on my temple. The frown on Allen's face was almost expected, he had always been good at guessing my train of thought. "Sorry, Lena. I didn't mean to depress you. I know you regret not having more kids."

I smiled and shook my head at him. How was it that he was still so sweet after all those years? "I have no regrets. The two we have is two more than I ever thought I would get. And they're yours. It still amazes me that-"

The rest of my words were drowned out by a loud cry coming from the doors to the dining hall. Allen and I both jumped at the sudden noise, but then we relaxed. That sound had become incredibly familiar over the last four years and we knew it was nothing to worry about. It was just Mason. That boy had strongly inherited his mother's skittish side, and as such, he scared rather easily.

It may not have been cause for alarm, but Allen and I still rushed into the cafeteria anyway. Odds were that it was one of our kids that had set him off. Not intentionally of course, they were just loud and Mason didn't like loud noises.

As was expected, Mason was hiding behind Marie, burying his face in his father's pant leg. What was not expected was that neither of my children were anywhere near the brown haired boy. Madelynn was talking with Jerry, and the chef was clearly trying to keep her away from the food until it was ready. Daniel was hanging on Lavi's shoulders, and I couldn't tell if he was trying to keep Kanda away from the redhead or if he was trying to help the samurai kill him; though it was most likely the first as Daniel was even more of a pacifist than Allen was.

Satisfied that my children weren't to blame for Mason's outburst, I nudged Allen towards the group of boys, hoping he'd diffuse the fight rather than make it worse; though Kanda did know better than to point his sword at my husband in front of my children, so hopefully he would cooperate. Meanwhile, I made my way over to Marie and Mason. I couldn't help it; my "mother hen instinct", as Lavi called it, was just too strong. I couldn't ignore a crying child. "Is he alright?"

Marie laughed gently as he picked up his son and Mason snuggled into his chest. "It's nothing to worry about, Lenalee. You know how he is. He's just overreacting. But thanks for asking. It seems like you and Allen are the only ones who even notice his episodes anymore."

I smiled up at the blind man. "Hopefully it's just a phase. Madelynn grew out of hers."

"That's because you didn't give her a choice." Marie was laughing at me now. "I don't think having a younger sibling would solve Mason's issues."

I couldn't help joining in on his laughter. "Miranda would never go for that anyway." The German woman had been a complete wreck during her pregnancy; going through that again wasn't something she was ever going to do.

"That's certainly true." Marie laughed and nudged me towards the group of rowdy boys. "Now, I believe you're needed over there."

I glanced at the group just in time to see Kanda start to draw his sword. But before I could intervene, Jerry was announcing that the food was ready and the impending fight stopped before it started.

Madelynn cheered at the announcement of food, but grew dejected when she was told that she couldn't eat until the party officially started and the speeches were over. Everyone laughed. Especially once it was pointed out that she and Allen were making the exact same face.

I joined my family at the table that was set up specifically for us. Today was not only my tenth anniversary and Madelynn's first mission, but it was also the first anniversary of the Earl's death; Allen was definitely going to be the center of attention at this party.

Lavi started the speeches once everyone was seated. Bookman had died of old age when Daniel was an infant, and Lavi had succeeded him. The redhead had taken on an apprentice a few years after that, and the twelve year old boy spent Lavi's whole speech making faces at the sentimentality of it; we all agreed that Thatcher took the whole Bookman thing much too seriously.

My brother went next, but before he got more than three sentences out, Madelynn complained that he was going too slowly. And of course, Komui adored his niece every bit as much as he adored me when I was her age, and he immediately gave in to her. It was one of the many reasons I limited their time together; I was not going to let my brother spoil my daughter. At least she had enough restraint to not cut off Lavi.

Madelynn dug into the food the second Komui suggested that we do the speeches after dinner. The other parasite-types immediately followed her lead, causing Haley to wonder whose idea it was to have the talking before the meal in the first place.

The room filled with laughter and conversation as we ate. But when Madelynn began talking about her mission, all the other conversations faded away. My heart nearly stopped as I listened to my daughter describe her first encounter with the akuma.

When she began talking about seeing their souls, she was interrupted by a loud clatter. Krory had dropped his glass and it had shattered on the floor. But it was Lavi who spoke in the silence that followed. "Seriously, Allen? You used the power of your curse to show your _daughter_ the souls of the akuma?"

It wasn't until I saw how pale the redhead was that I recalled that he and Krory had also seen the akuma souls. I suddenly wished I had said something to Madelynn about not telling the others what she saw, but there was nothing I could do about that now.

Lavi and Krory were understandably distraught over the news, but Allen was offended by their assumption. He narrowed his silver eyes and hissed at the redhead. "I have only intentionally used that power once. On Lenalee. And she asked me to do it. Even then, I only did it because of Maddie. We've known since she was born that she inherited my curse, so Lena wanted to see it for herself."

It took a moment for the others to decide if it was more important to focus on the fact that I had also seen that disturbing sight or on the news that Madelynn had Allen's curse. Then all hell broke loose.

Allen and I shared a look as everyone spoke at once. While we agreed with the others that it was sad that he had passed on his curse, neither of us saw the need to make such a fuss about it.

We were pulled from our silent conversation when Daniel started pulling on Allen's sleeve. "Daddy? What's going on?"

The innocent question put an immediate end to the hubbub. It was a sharp reminder to the others that children were present and they had to watch their language. Allen tousled Daniel's hair and smiled down at him. "We can talk about that later, buddy." His silver eyes glinted dangerously as he glanced sideways at the others. It was a very thinly veiled threat. "A party isn't the place for that kind of conversation."

The awkward silence that followed was broken by Marie clearing his throat. "So, Maddie, why don't you finish telling us about your mission?"

She didn't need to be asked twice and immediately jumped right back into her story. Her excitement was contagious, and the party was quickly back to full steam.

The party continued well into the night. The war was far from over, but it had turned greatly in our favor in the last year, and everyone enjoyed the chance to celebrate that. But as much as I loved my friends, I was ready to be alone with my husband. It _was_ our anniversary after all.

So the very first time I caught one of them yawning, I announced that it was time for my children to go to bed, and Allen and I excused ourselves. Daniel fought it, but Madelynn had barely stayed awake long enough to brush her teeth, and he quickly followed his sister into dreamland.

Alone at last, I curled up in bed beside my husband and he immediately climbed on top of me. We were nearly thirty now, no longer the horny teenagers we were when we first got together, but between our children and the war, time to ourselves was hard to come by; if we found the chance to have sex, we took it. Especially if that chance came on our anniversary.

~Fin~


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